


Self Love

by parallelmonsoon



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self Care, platonic self-love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24060748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parallelmonsoon/pseuds/parallelmonsoon
Summary: In the aftermath, Thomas realizes that part of self-care is taking care of the people who care for him the most.  It's time he learned to love the sides and give back just a little of what they've given him.
Comments: 564
Kudos: 987





	1. Patton

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by https://mayflowers07.tumblr.com/post/617468914913394688/give-me-a-character-thomas-who-loves-his-sides

In the aftermath, Thomas takes some time.

He plays video games (with decidedly no frogs, thank you.) He goes on walks in the Florida drizzle. He checks in with his friends- not just Joan and Tayln, but friends he hasn't spoken to in weeks, months, years.

He breathes.

And he does feel better for it, a little more each day. He gets out of bed without having to fight against the weight that had been settled on his chest. He thinks of projects yet to come, and instead of fear there's excitement. He'd forgotten what that felt like, heady anticipation instead of dull dread.

But still. There's something unsettled in him, a pinch just behind his belly button. A sense that while things are getting better, there's more work yet to do.

There's no revelation, no sudden epiphany. It comes to him gently one morning. He's supposed to be practicing self-love, right?

...so maybe it's time he starts loving himself.

_'Phrasing,'_ he thinks, and giggles at his own stupid joke. And then he reaches out for Patton. A request, not a demand.

Patton rises up in the kitchen. He smiles- too wide, a showing of teeth more then a grin. There's a slump to his shoulders. He looks tired. Looks *burdened*, and Thomas is moving around the table before he can think better of it.

“What do you need, kid- oh!”

Has he ever hugged one of the sides before? Maybe, when they were younger and the line between imaginary and real had been more yielding. At first it's like hugging nothing at all, and Thomas' arms pass through Patton to close against his own chest.

Patton blinks at him, and Thomas gets to see the realization break over him. Those tired, tired eyes go wide, then scrunch shut as Patton draws a shuddering breath.

“Thank you,” he whispers, “But you can't...”

Bull(frog)shit.

Thomas squeezes his own eyes shut. He adjusts himself, widening his arms. Leaving space, and he imagines Patton in that space. He thinks of hugs and how the best ones feel. Arms around your shoulders, a hand rubbing circles on your back. Just the right amount of pressure.

He thinks of how they *feel*. Safety and warmth and acceptance and love given freely. He thinks of Patton, of Patton who tries so very hard for him. Who gets things wrong but keeps moving forward, who gets things wrong only because he so badly wants to get them right.

Thomas tucks his face down against Patton's (warm, solid, real) shoulder and breathes in the pastry smell of him. Warmer then cinnamon- nutmeg, maybe? He can feel Patton crying. Can feel him hugging back, just a little too tight, a little too desperate. Not quite perfect, and that's so much better.

They stand like that for a long time. Until Patton pulls back a little, and Thomas lets him, both of them sniffling and sniveling and giggling a little, too.

“Thank you,” Patton says again.

And then he boops Thomas' nose, and their giggles break into laughter that leaves them both a little weak in the knees.

“What **did** you need?” Patton asks, after they've both calmed down a little. Thomas shrugs.

“...nothing at all,” he says. Because it's always a disaster, a dilemma. It's always him needing and them giving, and that has to stop. “I just wanted to ask if you wanted to have breakfast with me?”

Patton smiles. A real smile that crinkles in the corners of his eyes. “Count-me-chocula in!”

Thomas groans and reaches for the bowls.

* * *

He makes it a habit after that. Patton doesn't really eat, of course, but Thomas always goes through the motions. Fork, plate, napkin. Even dishes him up a portion only to tuck it away in tupperware after- wasting food is wrong, after all.

They talk- of silly things, mostly. The next door neighbor's new puppy (just the fattest little biscuit), the final season of The Good Place (Thomas still hasn't seen the finale- he's just not ready to say goodbye.) They see who can make the most obscure pun. Patton wins, always, and how can Thomas' own mind outwit him?

But sometimes they talk about Patton's fears. Of finding that balance, that just-enough center between too much and too less. They talk about the things that Thomas was taught, and the parts he thinks are worth keeping. They remind each other that being good is an effort, not a goal.

And they hug. When they meet and when they part, and each time it gets a little easier.


	2. Logan

Logan is next.

Thomas is waving him over to the laptop even before he's finished rising up.

“Logan, Logan...” He's laying it on a little thick, maybe, but he needs to catch Logan's interest if this is going to work. “Come look at this.

Logan frowns but steps forward. The creature undulates across the screen. Something like a squid mixed with a ribbon, shimmering in shades of violent orange and deepest purple against the dark backdrop.

“What **is** it?” Thomas asks, “I've never seen anything like it.”

Logan takes a step back. Adjust his glasses and clears his throat.

“A blanket octopus,” he says.

And absolutely nothing else.

...this will be harder then Thomas thought.

“If that's all...”

“Wait!” Logan pauses, and it's the strangest thing, looking at someone half-submerged in the floor. He rises slowly, making a show of huffing a sigh.

Thomas clicks over to the next video in the playlist. The creature here is nearly white. Perhaps not quite as otherworldly as the last, but the big flaps on the sides of its head make Thomas smile. “What about this one?”

“A dumbo octopus.” Logan crosses his arms and yeah...Thomas has his work cut out for him.

He knows full well he's earned it, this indifference. They've shut Logan down time and time again. Belittled him, ignored him, pushed him aside. Told him one day that he was valued only to shun him again the next, and Thomas knows mere assurances that **this** time they mean to do better won't fix it.

He knows also from Patton that the other sides are also trying to fix the damage done. Knows that Logan has been just as glacier, and again...who can blame him?

He lets Logan go only to summon him again a few days later. This time the videos are of sunfish. Manta rays, humpback whales, pink river dolphins. He asks questions about what they eat, how they communicate. Things that require more then a once word response. But Logan's answers are still clipped, perfunctory, and he never lets Thomas forget just how much he doesn't want to be there.

Thomas lets him go. Summons him again. Flying fish, this time, and just why do they fly? Is it to catch food, or to mate, or...?”

“...the reason is unknown, but current thinking is that it is likely an adaption to avoid predators.” Logan pauses. Hesitates, and Thomas's stomach sinks with the reminder of just how much harm they- **he** \- has inflicted. “And they do not actually fly. They use their pectoral fins to glide.”

It's a start.

“You could just look these things up,” Logan reminds him the next time. He's agreed to sit, though stiffly and on the very edge of the chair. “And I do not understand your sudden interest in marine lifeforms. Is this for an upcoming video?”

Thomas pauses the current vid (manatees floating chubby and serene.) “I could look it up, sure,” he agrees, “But I like how you explain things. And I'm interested because they're interesting!”

It's true, he realizes. He might have started this for a different reason, but the longer it's gone on the more Thomas has found himself genuinely enthralled. It's been a long time since he learned something new purely for the pleasure of knowing it.

“...so you said they're related to elephants?” he said, and hits play.

* * *

It happens slowly. But little by little, Logan eases. A little of the rigidity fades from his spine. He leans forward to squint at the things Thomas finds. He asks questions of his own, and they look the answers up together.

(Thomas has never quite understood how it works. How sometimes Logan and the other sides know things that he does not. He suspects they actually *don't* know things that he doesn't...they just have access to everything he's forgotten, every random fact and half-absorbed lecture. The thought makes him all too aware of how *dependent* they are on his choices.

Logan lives to learn. He thrives on it. Feeds off of it, and Thomas has been letting him go hungry.)

The breakthrough happens when Thomas summons Logan late one night. It's well past midnight, and Thomas had been idly watching youtube, as one does. One of the random recommended videos caught his eyes, and now he's nearly breathless with excitement as he turns the screen to share what he's found.

“ **Look** ,” he hisses. A deviation from the sea theme, a computer recreation of a creature that stalks tall and menacing but also gangling and downright bizarre. The giant beak stabs down and catches something green and squalling. “I hate it and I love it and I have to know **everything**.”

Logan makes a muted noise that catches in his throat. Rises up on his toes and back down- a short of full body shimmy, very nearly a bounce.

“ **Oh** ,” he says, and the excitement in it matches Thomas' own. “Quetzalcoatlus. The largest flying pterosaur...”

“They **flew**?!” Thomas damn near squeals, and he tugs Logan down to sit on the bed beside him.

Logan talks about wingspan and launching points and aerodynamics. Soon he's gesturing, and the monotone...gone entirely, and the life in his voice is beautiful. Logan's eyes are shining, and it's a lovely, lovely thing.

They sit shoulder to shoulder until the sun rises.

' _Maybe we'll do stars next week,_ ” Thomas thinks, and smiles.


	3. Virgil

It makes Virgil nervous.

Well, **obviously**.

He eyes Thomas with suspicion when he says he just wants to listen to music together. Stalks about with his shoulders up by his ears when Thomas tries to show him a conspiracy video. He looks like something hunted, something wounded but **fierce** , more then capable of putting up a fight.

“Alright, buddy,” Thomas says after a less then successful attempt at getting Virgil to settle long enough to watch The Secret of Nimh. “I'll see you soon.”

He puts his hand on Virgil's shoulder as he moves to stand. Means to squeeze, a friendly goodbye.

...in retrospect, he really should have warned him.

Virgil manages a spot-on impression of a startled cat. One moment he's by the couch. The next, he's ten feet back, chest heaving, staring at Thomas with impossibly wide eyes.

“Dude,” he breathes, “What the absolute **fuck**?”

It's his tempest voice, double and tripling and Thomas shouldn't laugh, he really, really shouldn't.

But he does, because it's Virgil and Thomas just loves him so.damn.much.

That's nothing new, of course, but the more time he spends with the sides one on one the more that feeling grows. He feels bubbly with it, sometimes. A fizzing pop just under the skin, like he's a can of soda that's been given a good shake. It tickles, makes it easier to smile wider, laugh louder. Who knew love could be exponential

(Exponential. He'll have to share that with Logan, later...he'll be proud.)

“Yeah.” Thomas raises his hand and flexes his fingers. “Sorry. I guess that's a thing, now. Patton helped me figure it out.”

He gestures at Virgil, a come-hither wave. The way Virgil edges his way over sideways only heightens his resemblance to a spooked feline.

Thomas reaches out. Slow and steady, giving Virgil ample time to move away if he chooses. He takes him by the shoulder again, staying with him when he flinches.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

He can feel the tension in him, a high-tension thrum that makes Thomas' own bones ache. He lets his hand settle a little heavier and rubs tiny circles with his thumb on Virgil's collarbone.

He's surprised, when Virgil shudders and leans into it. Just a tiny press back into the pressure. He doesn't quite relax...not at all, really...but a little of the brittleness fades. Thomas dares a little pat...

Too much, too fast. Virgil pulls away with something like a gasp.

“Yeah,” he says, and he can't quite look Thomas in the eyes. “It's cool or whateves, I guess. Catch ya later, Tommyknocker.”

It's always so unsettling, how Virgil can be there and then simply **not**. Thomas waits out the faint queasiness it causes and considers.

Well, now.

That was interesting.

* * *

Thomas starts off small.

Ruffling Virgil's hair as he passes by. Nudging him gentle with an elbow when he gets sassy. Fleeting little touches, always telegraphed so Virgil can avoid them if he wishes.

Virgil never does.

Thomas knows the sides can touch each other. He's even seen Patton hug the others...but he's also witnessed Virgil ducking away, shielding himself with crossed arms and a glower.

Of course Patton had apologized, and he can't remember him trying again after that. Thomas realizes that may well be when the high fives started, and of course Patton would do his best to accommodate what he must have assumed was an aversion.

Only...Virgil is very much **not** averse. It softens him, every time. Thomas leans in close to point out an iffy line in a script and rests his hand on Virgil's arm as he does. Virgil stiffens. He always does at first. Goes razor wire taunt...

...and then...

He still doesn't quite relax. Just...softens. Unknots himself and yields just slightly. It's subtle and heady. It feels like something earned.

Thomas suspects that Patton had simply moved too fast. He thinks of a book he read as a child. There was a boy and a fox, and the fox had taught the boy to tame him. Patience had been the key, and Thomas is learning just how patient he can be.

Every day he finds excuses to touch Virgil. Every day Virgil stiffens less and softens more. One night Thomas convinces him that they should do each other's nails. Thomas goes first and he takes his time with it. Turns it into more of a manicure, telling Virgil he needs the practice for his upcoming home spa day with Talyn. He clips and files and rubs in lotion, and when he chances a glance Virgil's eyes have gone half-hooded. He's breathing very slowly, Virgil, and his face is still. He looks...

Calm.

When it's his turn Virgil has to shake himself back awake. His hands are trembling, though they steady as he works. He's gentle...always so gentle, so careful of Thomas.

It's very quiet, there in the bathroom. An almost church silence, and it does feel sacred, somehow , this stretched out moment between them.

Virgil applies the last coat of gloss and Thomas tries to hide his disappointment. He admires the work while he can...it's all imaginary, of course, and will fade as soon as he loses focus.

But for now... “Damn,” Thomas whistles, “ **Nice**.”

A rainbow gradient. Not just every nail a different color but every nail varying in hue from base to tip.

He half-regrets his own enthusiasm when Virgil startles. Not badly, but the spell is most definitely broken. Thomas can already see him withdrawing into himself. He'll be more distant now for a good few days at least, and that's okay. It scares him, being vulnerable, and he always seems to need a little space to recover.

So the next time Thomas summons him (there's a new mothman documentary on Netflix, so of course Thomas is going to watch it and scare himself silly) he doesn't press. Just pats the other side of the sofa, leaving plenty of space so Virgil won't feel trapped.

He'd forgotten how brave his anxiety can be.

Virgil throws himself down in a sprawl. Stuffs a pillow under his head and pulls his legs up so they're draped across Thomas' lap.

Thomas blinks. Twists his head to hide his grin and drops a hand on Virgil's knee. He jostles him a little, thumb slipping through a tear in the denim to rub circles there. “Ready to never sleep again?”

“Bring the noise,” Virgil says, and that delicious fizz pop makes Thomas laugh for no real reason at all.

* * *

Still, there are bad days.

Thomas knows that Virgil has been having problems adjusting to the new normal inside Thomas' head. He's come to an uneasy truce with Janus, but there's some history between them, an old wound that neither one can stop poking at.

It's getting better, Patton tells him. Better, but not good. Not yet, anyway.

So there are days when Thomas wakes with his nerves prickling across his shoulders and a tension that's not his own at his temples. There are days when he calls for Virgil and Virgil doesn't show, sending Patton to make excuses in his stead.

Those are the days when Virgil locks himself away. When he goes to ground, curling up small in his room and hoarding his worries so they won't bother Thomas more then they already do. It makes Thomas **ache** , because the others can't help him there...can't cross the threshold without falling prey to corruption.

Wait.

 **They** can't.

Thomas **can**.

He's angry at himself for taking so long to realize such a simple thing. He closes his eyes and thinks of Virgil. Anxious, worried, brave, fierce Virgil, and it's easier this time because he already knows the way.

He's in the bedroom when he closes his eyes and in the bedroom when he opens them...just a different bedroom, a bedroom where the shadows under the bed loom large and threatening and the alarm is buzzing, always buzzing, a low but persistent reminder that they'll **never** be on time.

Virgil is curled on the bed. Breathing too fast, too shallow, and the skin under his eyes is black as pitch. His eyes are squeezed shut, and there's no way to do this that won't scare holy hell out of him.

Thomas clears his throat.

Virgil doesn't resemble a cat this time so much as a mink, all sinew and thrashing. He gets himself tangled in the quilt and has to fight his way out. “I told you get o...”

Virgil's own voice falters when he sees Thomas. The reverb beneath keeps going a moment longer (...out out out...) and okay. That's nine levels of creepy right there.

“Nope,” Thomas says, cheerfully popping the 'p'. “You're stuck with me, buddy.”

It's not that Virgil's anxiety isn't feeding his own. It very much is, and already Thomas feels like he could vibrate out of his own skin. But it's also already **his**. It can't corrupt him because it's already a part of him. It's just that sometimes Virgil feels it **for** him, and that's not going to fly anymore. 

He ignores Virgil's protests and clambers up onto the bed. Hauls him in, and sure, now they're both kind of a mess and breathing quick and maybe Thomas feels a little like he's dying, but somehow it's okay. He's know it's just a feeling and that it will pass. They can ride this out together. 

He finally gets Virgil tucked in close with his head under Thomas' chin. “Oh, just stop,” he says when Virgil tries to wiggle his way free. “I'll tell everyone you fought to the bitter end, okay? This is better. You  **know** this is better.” 

...and wonder of wonders, Virgil stills. Lets himself be held and even snuggles closer.. They hold each together when they want to shake to pieces. They count together, and name sights and sounds and tastes together, and it sucks, sure, but it's fine. 

“We're fine,” Thomas says aloud and it's true. The worst of it is over. Just a flashfire storm, and those are violent but never last long. He presses a quick kiss to the top of Virgil's head and dodges his swat with a laugh. “Wanna go paint nails?” 

Virgil wipes at his snotty nose with his wrist. “Gross,” he mumbles, and the shadows under his eyes are deep and dark but more gray now then black. He wipes the evidence on Thomas' shirt and slides off the bed. 

“You coming?” he says over Thomas' indignant squawking. 

* * *

And still. 

For as far as they've come together, Thomas know he can't just leave it there. With the others there was room, sometimes, to leave things unsaid. 

Not with Virgil. There could be no uncertainty, no doubt. No hook where fear could snag and tangle. 

So. 

“I don't care that you were a dark side.” 

There's no particular reason that Thomas chooses that night over any other. Virgil is scrolling on his phone, half turned to lean back against him, and Thomas feels all that lost brittleness come snapping back. He doesn't speak, just tenses, a wary sort of waiting that breaks Thomas' heart. 

“No, that's not true,” he corrects, “I do care. I'm not going to tell you that you aren't the same person. Who you were then...that was Virgil too, and I care about Virgil. And I know that no matter what name you went by and no matter what you did, you were trying to protect me. Maybe you got things wrong, but Patton gets things wrong too. So do I...we all do. I care about the Virgil who gets things wrong and tries to do better and fights so hard to keep us all safe. You have **always** been that Virgil.” 

He thinks it's pretty good, as speeches go. 

His satisfaction only grows when Virgil...relaxes is almost too mild a word. He  **melts** . Let's Thomas take his weight, all of it, twisting a little to hid his face against Thomas' face. 

“Shut up,” he whines, muffled, “Oh my god, you're such a **dork**.” 

“Yeah.” Thomas grins, using his nails to scritch the nape of Virgil's neck to make him shiver. “And you're part of me, so what does that say about **you** , tough guy?” 


	4. Roman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *PLEASE READ* I don't normally do notes like this, but I know people are here for the fluff. This chapter is really rough, but I *promise* the fluff *will* come for Roman. This story *will* have a happy ending.
> 
> Also, I have a tumblr now and would love more blogs to follow and friends. https://parallelmonsoon.tumblr.com/

Roman doesn't sing anymore.

Before, he would host concerts. They were all free to join but it was Roman, Roman who was the star. Roman who spun under the spotlight with his arms outstretched, belting out every Disney song ever written. He put everything he was into those songs, poured himself wholly, exposed himself utterly. 'Tale As Old As Time' held all the trepidation and fear and awe of love just born. 'Let It Go' should have been hackneyed, a cliché worthy only an eyeroll. Roman made it new again, made it echo with yearning and desperate, fragile pride.

(You'd expect the stage to be more grandiose. It was Roman's dreamscape, and he could have put them in the Shubert or the Sydney Opera House or even a crumbling Greek amphitheater. Instead; Thomas' middle school auditorium, with its dusty red curtain and single, flickering spotlight.)

Before, Roman would hum while he worked. Scribbling away and humming, always humming, little snatches of melodies cribbed from shows or made up on the spot. When he grew frustrated the hum turned strident, pushed out between gritted teeth. When things were flowing it deepened, a wavering, atonal drone that Thomas thought of as Roman's purr.

Before, he would sing Britney. Loudly and proudly, and there had been days Thomas could barely think for the mental refrain of 'Stronger' cluttering his head. And Thomas might have griped and groaned, but he'd never minded, not really, because Roman only sang Britney when he was at his happiest.

Before.

A terrible word.

Before the callback.

Before the wedding.

Before they'd broken him.

* * *

Roman doesn't sing anymore. He barely speaks.

He comes when Thomas summons him, but only to apologize. “I don't have anything for you today,” he says time and again, and his shoulders are slumped and his eyes are red-rimmed and this is worse then Patton's exhaustion or Logan's distrust or Virgil's fear.

This is apathy. Thick as quicksand, and Roman isn't even trying to pull himself free.

Thomas tries spending time with him. They color together, and Roman is methodical and slow and never strays outside the lines.

They write a story line by line, and though Thomas tries to sway the plot by the end there's no patchwork monsters, no sword-wielding knights. Just dull characters doing dull things in a dull, everyday world.

“I'm **sorry** ,” Roman whispers, and Thomas doesn't know how to fix this.

* * *

Thomas sings.

All day, every day, whether Roman is there or not.

He sings 'Drift Away' and 'Go The Distance' and “Baby One More Time.' He makes up his own songs. Raps about washing dishes and croons ballads about the awesomeness of Leslie Knope. He sings the songs that Roman can't, and prays to one day hear them echoed.

There's only ever silence.

* * *

One day Roman comes to him.

“I apologized to Deceit,” he mumbles, apropos of nothing.

He's staring down, toeing at the carpet like a schoolboy called before the principal and **oof**. If **Thomas** can tell Roman hadn't meant a word...

Yeah. There was no way on this green earth that **Janus** had bought it.

And maybe Thomas should have chided him. Should have pointed out that even now Roman could not bring himself to call the other side by name.

“Thank you,” he says instead, and it hurts, the way relief breaks over Roman. He just wants to be good for Thomas. Just wants to get it right, and they're the ones who keep changing what that means.

“Did he apologize to you?” he asks, and he only means to show that he cares as much about Roman's hurts as Janus'. He regrets it instantly when Roman crumples, folding in on himself like he's been gutshot.

“He did it first,” he says, and sinks out.

* * *

The next time Thomas summons Roman it's not to the living room but straight to the stage. It's all a little hazy, the curtain more gray then red, the seats in the audience obscured by a fog that drifts and eddies. Thomas' daydream, not Roman's.

Close enough.

“I want to try some improv.” He's quick to hold up a hand when Roman balks. “Please? Joan wants to test a new series.”

That's all it takes. Please, and Roman bows his head. Please, and Roman tries for Thomas. Beaten down, brought low, and still he **tries**. 

...Thomas doesn't know how to fix this. Doesn't know if it  **can** be fixed. 

“Could you?” he asks and gestures to the stage. 

A click and the world resolves around them. It's just like Thomas remembers. The warped floorboards, the rickety bucket seats, the *smell* that he could never quite place. 

And he thinks he understands. There's an intimacy and a comfort here, a nostalgia turned not sepia but golden. He thinks of his very first play. The curtain's slow rise, the way that dust had puffed out to hang glittering in the light. His absolute dread, his certainty that he was going to forget his lines or cry or piss himself. Maybe all three. 

“Remember The Jungle Book?” Thomas had been a wolf. Not Mowgli, not Bagheera or Baloo. Just a generic, background wolf, and his only lines had been “brother” and a howl. 

Roman says nothing, and the silence is hollow and rings like a bell. 

“I wanted to run right off the stage,” Thomas says, “The only reason I didn't was because I was so afraid of disappointing you.”

Roman startles. “...disappointing me?” he says, and his voice is very small.

“Sure. You were so proud when we got the part. You worked so hard to help me make the costume and get my growl just right. And when we took our bow...”

A standing ovation. Because they were kids and their parents were obligated to make a fuss, but **oh**. Thomas had spent his life chasing that high. 

And always Roman. There at his back, there to tell him that he  **could** . There to tell him he was good enough. That they were good enough together, and so few people were lucky enough to have someone who believed in them so utterly. 

“...I never wanted to disappoint you.” The world is wavering again, distorted through the gathering tears. “Princey. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know we screwed this up. We kept changing the rules and that wasn't fair. I...” 

“Thomas?” 

Something in the way Roman says his name makes Thomas snap his mouth shut with force enough to catch his tongue. He blinks until he can see clearly again, but Roman won't met his eyes. He's staring out across the empty chairs. One arm is wrapped around himself, fingers digging in above the elbow deep enough to bruise. 

“...yeah, buddy?” 

And now finally Roman looks at him, and there's...

...there's nothing, just nothing, there. Anything would have been better. Thomas would have taken hatred over the desert desolation that lived in Roman's eyes. 

“I don't want to be here,” Roman says. 

“Here? On the stage?” Thomas asks cautiously. 

It's scarcely a relief when Roman nods. “I want to go back to my room,” he says, “Can I leave?” 

Thomas lets him go. What else can he do? Roman doesn't want to hear it, his useless, rambling apology. He watches Roman sink out, watches the auditorium fade to fog and lacework memory around him. 

Thomas stands alone in the silence.   


No one is singing.

* * *

The next time Thomas summons Roman, Roman doesn't come. 

But someone does. 


	5. Remus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for body horror and graphic descriptions of dead bodies. In other words, Remus.

The lights flicker. Blood oozes down the walls. A thick gout of it splashes from the ice maker and puddles on the kitchen tiles, spreading in tiny tendrils across the grout. There's a wet penny stench, more a taste then a smell, thick enough to chew. Somewhere far away there's a hum, a distant feast of flies.

Thomas sighs.

“Remus,” he greets, and as the blood wavers and fades he makes a note to sweep the floor.

For a moment he's left in peace. Just long enough to make him suspicious, and Thomas cranes his neck back to look behind himself with flinching caution. It's not entirely a surprise to see two eyes floating there, the optic nerves twining and writhing like mating snakes. Underneath hangs a disembodied, too-wide smile, complete with slick gums and a waggling tongue.

Remus resolves into the world in layers. A tree-root network of arteries and veins. Organs that pulsate and glisten. Lush, wet muscle.

“How's that for an entrance!” Remus crows. The last of his skin crawls up his neck to cover the red planes of his faces as he spins, arms outstretched, triumphant and entirely too pleased with himself.

Thomas slaps a hand over his eyes. “Clothes,” he grinds out.

Remus snorts, but Thomas hears the rustle of fabric and chances a peek. Booty shorts and a crop top.

He'll take it.

“Thank you,” he manages.

(He already knows he'll dream of it later. The slow-motion slither of the intestines. The heavy brown pouch of the stomach. The lungs, walnut-shriveled and then straining taunt.)

“It's not like you haven't seen it before.” Remus throws himself down across the table, leaving his head to dangle over the edge. “Unless...do you close your eyes in the shower? That's a good way to slip, you know.”

He brightens. Rolls onto his belly, hands clasped under his chin and legs kicking in the air, and Thomas braces himself.

“You could crunch up your spine like a pretzel. Oh!” He giggles. High-pitched, merry and bright and very nearly sweet, and Thomas wishes it were an uglier sound. “Or jam the shower thingie right up your nose and into your brain. What a way to go!”

It would all be bad enough if it were all just words. But Thomas can't help but picture it...his own limp corpse. Open, glazed eyes, blue skin, stiffening limbs. The strange, twisted hunch of his neck. The dark blood clots clustered in the drain.

Who knew that a vivid imagination could be as much a curse as a blessing?

“I don't mind looking at myself,” Thomas protests, because apparently being called a never-nude prude is the most distressing part of what just happened.

Remus rolls his eyes so hard they go skittering across the floor. For some reason it's the little damp blotches they leave behind that make Thomas gag.

“It's not the same,” Thomas says, and why is he arguing about this? “You aren't me.”

“Eeh.” Remus rolls his shoulders and winks one empty socket. “Close enough.”

...forget the meaty lump of the liver and the pink apostrophes of the kidneys. There's the real nightmare fuel right there.

Thomas tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. Takes a dozen slow, steadying breaths. When he looks back again Remus is pacing. Round and round the table, shoes squelching with each step.

He judders, sometimes. Fades and reforms and almost glitches. He's never quite as solid as the others, never quite settled fully in the world. Thomas has never been sure if it's just his nature or if it's Thomas' own doing, an unconscious attempt to force Remus out of reality.

He wonders if it hurts.

“Roman isn't coming, is he," Thomas says. 

Remus stills.

And that's terrifying in itself, because Remus is never still. He turns his head to look at Thomas...slowly, with all the dramatic flair he shares with his brother, and his eyes are cold and hard and feral. Wolf's eyes, cat's eyes, the eyes of something that hunts lean for its dinner. He smiles, and Thomas shudders.

Thomas knows how this works. He knows that Remus can't hurt him, not really. And yet...

Thomas rarely thinks of his body. He despairs over it, sometimes, or in rare moments delights in it, but for the most part he simply lives in it. His center, the part he thinks of as *him*, is somewhere else.

But under Remus' flint-shard gaze Thomas knows himself to be meat. He is a squishy thing, frail and all-too-easily torn wide. He is prey, and across the room the predator drools silver and licks his lips.

“Felt you calling.” Remus strums his fingers against his chest. “Knew you didn't want **me** , but dear little Roman is...indisposed at the moment.”

He twists a hand. Batters his way in, and Thomas squeezes his eyes closed even though he knows it's pointless.

It takes a moment to make sense of it. Roman. Shattered to pieces, a frost-furred messy spill of parts. His face carved from his skull like a mask, and the worst part is how peaceful he looks, lips curved gently in an almost-smile.

A flash like sunlight through closed eyelids, and there's Roman again. Whole and curled fetal, arms up to cover his head. A Roman made of ash and dust, and Thomas thinks of Pompeii, of the thunder that swept down and turned a quiet day to fury.

“Stop!” Thomas is on the floor. Thomas is sobbing. Until he's sick with it, scrambling up to spit bile into the sink.

“Stop...” he whispers, even though Remus already has.

Remus grins. Or maybe it's a snarl, or maybe it's a frown. He's stuttering harder now, there and then not-quite, and it makes Thomas' head throb to look at him.

Thomas starts to call for Logan. Logan will talk him through it. He'll reassure Thomas that Roman is whole...not dust, not frozen and shattered and left to melt messy. He'll tell Thomas the truth.

“Go ahead,” Remus says, and it's almost a hiss, “Let him get **that** out of your head.”

...except Remus already has told him the truth, hasn't he? Not * **the** * truth, maybe, but * **a** * truth.

“I'm worried about him too.”

Remus's face twists into something complicated, something that weds grief and anger with smugness and reluctant pleasure. “It's stupid anyway,” he mutters, “Psycho Godfather Wars. Does that sound like a you thing?” He makes a show of looking Thomas up and down. “Mr. Too-Good-For-Snot was gonna help you play a gangster?” He cackles at the idea of it.

And in all honesty...it's a fair enough point. Thomas had never really felt confident that they would have gotten the part. It was so far outside his wheelhouse that it might have well have been on Mars.

“I guess I would have needed you both,” he says.

There's a crack and a deafening flair of static, and Remus is gone.

* * *

Thomas doesn't call him back. He's afraid that Roman will feel it if he does, and think himself replaced.

It gives him time to think, in any case. About Roman and Remus, and how his own child self had shaped who they were allowed to be.

They'd never had a choice. But then...Thomas hadn't either, because when you're small so much of what you know is given to you. His teachers had praised his stories of fairy unicorns and adventuring squires, while his painstakingly illustrated tale of fratricide had landed him in the counselor's office. He tries to be gentle with himself for taking so long to realize that glory in grey. 

He doesn't have to wait long for Remus to show his face again. He never does. It's a staring day, it seems, and Thomas doesn't much mind those.

“I'm glad you're here,” he says, and has to hide a grin at the way Remus falters mid-chew, cheeks bulging with deodorant. “I want to write a story and could use your help.”

Remus forces a too-wet swallow. “...you want to write a story,” he echoes, and he's got that feral look again, like he suspects Thomas is mocking him and fully intends to end him if he is. “With me.”

Thomas nods and reaches for a handy notepad. “Let's...” He hums, thinking. Snaps his fingers as inspiration strikes, pen already poised. “Tell me about the bird.”

* * *

Straight from the nest and into a jet turbine. At the time Thomas had been busy being disgusted for his morality's sake, but let's face it...

That shit is **hilarious**.

Hilarious and awful, and it just gets worse from there. The jet plows into a train that derails into the White House. A twisted butterfly flaps its wings scenario, except the butterfly is a fledgling sparrow and instead of a tornado it ends with everything (absolutely **everything** ) on fire.

By the last page Thomas' belly hurts from laughing. It's gross and gruesome and so over the top that he can't possibly take it seriously.

“And then the nun...”

“Enough, enough!” Thomas shakes out his aching wrist and holds up both hands in a plea for mercy. “Let's hold that thought for next time.”

He doesn't realize what he's asking until he's already said it. Cringes a bit, fully expecting Remus to ramble on all the louder.

...but Remus just grins, and his eyes are shining and he looks so much like Roman on his best days that Thomas feels his heart twist tight.

(Twins. Reflections in a fun house mirror. But the thing about those is that despite the long legs or tiny torso, what you see is still **you**.

Different, save for all the ways that they're the same.)

“Good job.”

Thomas offers a fist bump, and graciously pretends not to notice that Remus looks like he might well cry.

...and then they actually do make contact, and right. Thomas keeps forgetting that's new, and it's a good twenty minutes before he can convince Remus to stop poking at him.

* * *

The story grows. Page after page of mayhem and terror, and all the while Thomas learns.

He learns that Remus, even more then Virgil, craves touch. He wants to be close to Thomas, always. At first it's eighteen kinds of awkward, but he gets used to having Remus plastered to his side. Even gets used to the hot sulfur reek of him.

He wants to be held, but he also wants to move. Always fidgeting, bouncing his legs and tapping his fingers against Thomas' ribs. Until finally he explodes (only sometimes literally), flying up to pace, juddering and glitching and nearly growling from the strain of it.

(“Does that hurt?” Thomas finally asks.

“Like ants nesting in my marrow!” Remus says cheerfully.)

There's a day when Remus can't seem to stop himself. Just circles, a rabid dog chasing its own tail, and with every step he's a little more out of sync, a little more to the left of the world. Thomas has to look away, and even the flashes of rot and decay and maggots are easier on the eye.

Until finally Thomas can't stand another moment of it. He stands, eyes still closed, and catches Remus by the arm on his next pass. Pushes him down flat on the couch, ignoring his protests and wriggling.

“One sex joke and we're done for the day,” he says, and then simply lays flat on top on him.

**….**

“Oh,” Remus says, and his voice is surprised and very small.

Thomas grins.

Then next day Thomas gives him a fidget cube. And regrets it instantly, bitterly, because the clicking is frantic and never stops. And of course once Remus has the concept down he has to improve it, and instead of clicking it squawks or farts or shoots streams of slime.

Thomas swears he'll hear it in the grave. Six feet down, and there will still be the clicking, the squeaking, the burping. It makes him want to **scream**.

...Remus doesn't stutter when he's clicking. Maybe because the cube started off as something real, something tangible, and it's once-reality helps to tether him. Maybe because it was a gift, and in giving it Thomas crossed some threshold, found some level of acceptance in a deep down, hidden place.

Thomas grits his teeth and never says a word.

* * *

He learns that if he spends time with Remus things get easier.

Easier, not easy. He'll always have intrusive thoughts. Thomas has accepted that by now, just as he's accepted his anxiety.

But those thoughts get just a little quieter. A little less personal. He thinks “I wonder if I'd bounce if I fell' instead of 'jump.' He sees a blink-flash of a broken, twisted body, but it's just that...a body. A stranger instead of his brother or his mother, and that counts for something.

But there are days when Remus is still.

Days when he huddles against the arm of the couch and snarls a warning when Thomas tries to touch him.

And those are the days when the thoughts are not just personal but pointed. Thomas sees Joan, drowned and bloated, black tongue lolling. He sees his father hammering desperate at the car windows as the engine catches fire. He sees the people he loves suffering, and he listens to what Remus can't bring himself to say.

“I know,” he tells him, “I'll fix it. I'm not sure how, but I promise I will.”

* * *

And between it all...the hugs with Patton, the talks with Logan, the cuddles with Virgil, the stories with Remus...

Thomas talks to Janus.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *STOP, Please Read*
> 
> So, this chapter probably isn't going to go the way most will expect. All I can say is that Janus will also get a softer, fluffier entry by the end. 
> 
> Warnings for excess dialogue (snake boi likes to talk, yo), weirdly enthusiastic defense of Hans from Frozen, existential crises deliberately inflicted as a form of therapy, and questions of identity. 
> 
> I am *really* curious if anyone picks up on Janus' dastardly plan here.
> 
> Also, I want to sincerely thank each and every person who has left comments and kudos. I've been having a rather busy few weeks, but I *will* be replying to every comment. Please don't think I'm not grateful, because I absolutely am.

“…I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not…” The denial is pure reflex. Thomas isn’t even sure of what it is that he hasn’t done, only that he’s adamant that he had nothing at all to do with it, thank you very much. “I was just…”

And then he sees the smirk. It’s a tiny thing, caged tight at the corner of Janus’ scaled lips, and once Thomas might have missed it entirely.

Now he huffs a sigh, and the smirk widens enough to grow fangs.

“Ahhh.” The lift of Janus’ brow is so perfectly poised that Thomas refuses to believe he doesn’t practice in front of a mirror. “Then you didn’t just finish eating dinner with Patton?”

“Oh…that.” Thomas shrugs in a ‘ya got me’ kind of way. “Yeah.”

Janus hums. “Yes…'that.'” It’s strange how the gloves make his finger quotes seem all the more mocking. “In any case, I just dropped by-”

“-I called **you** ,” Thomas puts in, then jolts a little as he remembers why. “I thought we could-”

“-to commend you on your rather novel approach to self-care.”

Okay, yeah. That stings, and Thomas knows full well it’s only because it hits too close to home.

“I’m not spending time with Patton for **me** ,” he protests.

For all of Janus’ encouragement to be just a little more selfish, Thomas is painfully aware that when it comes to the sides he’s rarely been anything but. That’s precisely what he’s trying to change.

Like his sides, Thomas is striving to do better.

Janus tilts his head. Just so, the optimal angle for feigned concern. “Then you **don’t** enjoy your time together?” He lays his hand on his chest with a gasp so melodramatic Roman would be impressed. “Oh, poor Patton will be positively **crushed** !”

Thomas groans and drops his forehead down into the kitchen table with a solid thud.

“…why are you like this?” he asks against the wood, a plaintive plea. Janus laughs outright, the bastard.

“Come now, I’m only teasing,” he says, “I find questions of motive to be rather…dull.”

Thomas turns his neck without lifting his head to squint over him. He can already feel the threat of a headache throbbing at his temples.

“The end result is far more interesting,” Janus continues, blithely ignoring the fact that Thomas has face-palmed himself into a migraine. “In all sincerity-” Thomas snorts. “-I do approve. Bonding with your own heart? A worthy endeavor.”

Thomas props himself up on his hand. “It’s been good,” he admits, “Pretty terrific, actually.”

He smiles against his palm, thinking of earlier that evening. Just scrambled eggs, but Thomas had tried to doctor it up a little. Scallions, some mushrooms, a sprinkle of cheese. Patton had been shell shocked by his egg-xcellent taste.

Janus smiles back. Another tiny, secret thing, and it looks ill-practiced, that smile. Looks **real** , and Thomas chooses to believe that it is.

“I’m glad,” he says, “There’s nothing wrong with enjoying time with yourself, Thomas.”

And now they’ve come full circle. “There’s not,” Thomas agrees, “But that’s not what I’m doing. I’m spending time with Patton.”

Janus waves a dismissive hand. “As I said.”

He’s not **wrong**. Thomas knows that, not as one of Logan’s dry facts but as something fundamental. He knows it like he knows his body needs to breathe. He’s them, or they’re him, and it’s never been 'we’, only 'I.’

…he’s not wrong. Except that he is, wrong like trying to breathe water, like trying to breathe sand. It scrapes and it cuts and Thomas has to cough it out, can’t bear to let it stay.

“Patton isn’t me.” He shakes his head when Janus starts to reply, because that’s also wrong, just in some entirely different, equally awful way. “Patton isn’t **just** me,” he corrects, “He’s him, too.”

Utter nonsense. Perfect truth. Thomas feels it settle over him as a warm, satisfied glow.

“Well,” Janus says, “I suppose you **would** know better then I. Do try to get some sleep tonight, Thomas.”

He tips his hat and sinks out, leaving Thomas to blink at the empty space left behind.

He glances over at the carefully curated stack of books in the center of the table. Dense philosophical treaties, fantasies, alternative histories. He’d meant for Janus to pick one so they could discuss it later. A cozy little book club for two.

(Or is it one?)

Thomas lets his head slip off his hand and barely grunts at the impact with the table.

* * *

“Black or white?” Thomas pauses. “…you do play chess, right?”

In retrospect, he probably should have checked on that **before** asking Logan to tutor him on the basics. On the other hand, in all fairness…it’s Janus. Twisted chess master is his whole aesthetic.

“A game of strategy and tactics?” Janus plucks the black pawn from Thomas’ palm. “Oh, I positively * **despise*** it.”

Thomas swivels the board and returns his white pawn to its starting place. “Well, try to go a little easy on me,” he says, “I’m still learning, but I thought we could make it interesting.”

“Do tell.” Janus’ voice is mild, but the pupil of his snake eye constricts to a dark, narrow blade.

“Every piece I capture, I get to ask a question.” Thomas levels a finger in warning. “But you have to answer honestly.”

“Deal.” Janus offers a hand to seal it, and the ease of it all makes Thomas instantly suspicious.

“I expected more of a fight,” he admits.

Janus **winks** at him, and the audacity makes him groan. “Sorry to disappoint,” he says, and waves at the board in invitation.

Thomas nudges a random piece forward. Janus takes his turn and Thomas frowns. The black pawn is wide open, ripe for the taking.

Thomas spends the next few moves actively avoiding that sacrificial pawn. He’s not yet skilled enough to think four or five moves ahead, but he damn well knows a trap when he sees one.

Until finally Janus leaves his bishop open. Thomas can’t resist.

Janus folds his hands on the table and waits patiently to be interrogated. All innocence, and only Janus can make Thomas nervous by **cooperating**.

Thomas picks up his list. Favorite color, favorite song, favorite old dead Greek dude. He skips over them for something less banal, because he has a strong suspicion he’s only going to get a few chances.

“…are you cold blooded?”

Shit. There was probably a better way to lead into that. “You don’t actually have to answer if it’s, like, a sensitive subject or something,” Thomas says, “It’s just I keep the air conditioner on high and I wasn’t sure…”

He bites off his ramblings when Janus clucks his tongue and bats his lashes, a proper southern belle. “Why, Thomas…are you concerned for my comfort?”

It would have been easy to dismiss it as just more teasing. The sarcasm is as thick as ever, a slow, muddy drip of almost-friendly scorn. But there’s something else under it, something that twangs like a wire, and the smirk that lives at the corner of Janus’ mouth has flattened to press his lips thin.

And then it’s gone- if it was ever there at all- and Janus seems to shake himself. Adjusts caplet, hat, and gloves, and Thomas is proud of himself for knowing that’s a tell.

(Of what, precisely, he isn’t sure.)

Janus finishes smoothing down his sleeves. “To answer your question,” he says, “No, you do not need to adjust the air conditioner.”

“Oh, good.” Hold up. “That wasn’t my-”

Janus is already waggling a captured knight between his fingers. “My turn,” he says, and scoffs at Thomas’ surprise. “Quid pro quo, Thomas.”

Somehow it had never occurred to Thomas that his side might have questions of his own. He whines, just a little, because that hook of a smirk is back and he knows damn well that he’s in trouble.

Janus drums his fingers against his lips. He looks like he’s considering the choice, but there’s no doubt in Thomas’ mind that he’s only drawing it out to make Thomas squirm. He doesn’t even try to guess what’s coming, and still somehow the question catches him off-guard.

“Why am I a snake, Thomas?”

Thomas makes a thick, garbled noise of despair and gestures helplessly at the board. “I just wanted to play a game, man.” Not delve deep into the metaphysics of the partially-serpentine.

Janus twirls his fingers, a gesture that somehow manages to combine 'get on with it’ and 'sucks to be you.’

“I was a **kid** ,” Thomas snaps, “It’s not like I made a **choice**.”

“That’s not an answer,” Janus says, mild as anything, and oh. Oh, fuck him. Serpents who did nothing but deflect had absolutely no right to throw scales.

“You **know** why.”

“Humor me,” Janus says, “Venture a guess.”

It’s not that Thomas doesn’t know the answer. There’s no mystery here. He doesn’t at all resent the religion he was raised in, but having such stark proof of how it shaped it makes him belly twist uneasy.

Sure, he has a choice **now** . But his framework, his scaffolding, was built by others. If Thomas’ parents had been atheists, his sides would be very different people. **Thomas** would be a different person. Not necessarily better or worse, just different. There’s something deeply uncomfortable and a little frightening in realizing that the you that you think you are is as much a product of chance as anything.

 _'Everyone has sides_ ,’ Thomas thinks, _’ Everyone is made up of everyone else.’_

More nonsense, and this time the truth in it only makes him dizzy.

“The snake in the garden,” Thomas says, “You said it yourself, before.”

“The snake who tempted Eve,” Janus agrees. “Tempted her with…?”

Thomas pinches the bridge of his nose and gives serious consideration to just walking away. Except he **can’t** , because Janus quite literally lives inside his head and there’s no escape. “What is the **point** of this?”

“Humor me,” Janus says again.

Something in his tone makes Thomas look over. He half-expects to find him gleeful, openly rejoicing at Thomas’ dismay. Proof the snake has venom after all.

But Janus’ face is still. No over-the-top eyerolls, no carefully calculated lifts of the brow. He simply watches Thomas and waits.

 _'This is important to him,’_ Thomas realizes.

The irritation fades. It helps, knowing this isn’t cruelty. And maybe this isn’t how he wanted the night to go, but that doesn’t mean progress isn’t being made. Thomas knows he won’t get an answer to the why of it. But he can make a choice. He can have faith, and trust that whatever his methods, Janus’ intentions are only to his benefit.

“Tempted her to sin,” he says, and something like relief flashes in Janus’ human eye when he realizes Thomas means to play along. 

“Exactly that,” Janus says, “I must say, Thomas…for someone that makes their livelihood in the creative arts, you were a rather uninspired child. A serpent for a villain and a Disney prince for a hero. Hardly original, is it?”

Again, he’s not **wrong** , but in being right he’s also being unfair. “I was a kid,” Thomas says again. He feels a swell of reluctant nostalgia for it, that certainty of childhood. When villains were only villains, and not infuriating **little shits** who just want you to take better care of yourself. “I’m sorry if…”

Janus is quick to shake his head. “It is what it is. Would it do me any good to be angry?”

“Maybe not…” Thomas admits,“But it’s still okay if you are.”

The look Janus gives him is almost pleased. Even a tiny bit smug, like Thomas is a favored student who just surprised his mentor.

“Thank you for the permission,” he says, dry as anything. The smirk returns, becomes a grin that shows a bit of the bright pink jowl inside his serpent’s cheek. “In any case, I’m quite glad to be as devilishly handsome as I am.”

Thomas gives a surprised hard bark of a laugh, then sobers just as quickly. “I know you aren’t a villain.” He tries to look earnest, wanting so badly for Janus to believe it. “I don’t see you as the snake anymore.”

Now Janus does roll his eyes, and the sass in it is truly impressive. “Of course you do,” He gestures to his face. Flicks his tongue to show it’s curling length and forked tip. “If you didn’t, I would be different. We change when you do, Thomas.”

And again, not wrong. These days the changes were small. Princey’s new uniform, Logan’s new tie. But all the sides had looked very different when Thomas was a child. Virgil had been a lurking thing, a shadowy little twitch that stalked and murmured warnings. Patton had had Thomas’ father’s eyes and his mother’s smile. They had only started to look more and more like Thomas as he grew and knew them as himself.

“But I really don’t,” Thomas protests. Janus flicks his tongue again. Tastes the air. Shakes his head.

_Lie._

“…okay,” Thomas admits, both to Janus and himself, “I don’t think you’re **just** the snake in the garden anymore. You do tempt me, and sometimes that can be a good thing.”

“Perhaps it’s not your view of me that’s changed,” Janus suggests, “Perhaps it’s your view of the snake. What did the snake do, Thomas?”

The snake tricked Eve. The snake tempted her to disobedience and watched as humanity was exiled from paradise.

That’s the story Thomas learned. His foundation.

“…the snake offered knowledge,” he says, and yes, he can see it clearly now, the pride in Janus’ smile.

But Thomas isn’t done quite yet. “The snake offered knowledge,” he repeats, “And then the snake paid the price for Eve’s choice.”

Just as Janus has paid the price all these years. Exiled and isolated, when all he’d ever tried to do was make sure that when Thomas chose he did so with his eyes wide open.

“Well…” Janus is on his feet. Janus is looking anywhere but at Thomas, and Thomas can’t help his grin. It feels damn good see him flustered for a change. “…I think that’s enough for today.”

He leans down to move his queen out to center. “Checkmate in ten moves,” he says, “You really should learn to plan ahead, Thomas.”

After he’s gone Thomas spends a long time staring at the board. Testing moves and counter moves, trying to play things out to their inevitable conclusion.

Try as he might, he just can’t see it.

* * *

Thomas has a plan.

He just needs to bait the trap, and he knows just the right temptation.

“So you’ll join us?” he asks. Casual, casual. “I know Patton is looking forward to it.”

There’s no lie there. Patton had been more then down to build some bridges, and Thomas loved him for it.

Janus hefts a sigh that sounds like he’s emptying his lungs of every molecule of oxygen.

Thomas cringes.

“Patton and who else?”

Shit. “…I don’t know what you mean?” It’s weak and wavering to even his own ears.

Janus gives him a look of deep disappointment. So deep it borders on grief, as if knowing Thomas at all has driven him to bleak despair. “If that’s what you call acting…well, perhaps it’s a good thing that you didn’t attend the callback.”

 **Ow**. “Dude, too far.”

Janus has the grace to look ever-so-slightly abashed. Thomas lets out a sigh of his own He tries, but it just doesn’t have the same flair.

“…Virgil,” he mumbles.

“No.”

It’s not loud or vehement, but it plummets with all the flat finality of an anvil dropped from on high. Thomas sighs again and this time manages a little more gusto.

“Please.” He’s never been above begging. “I just want…”

He wants Virgil to feel safe. He wants Janus to believe he has a home. He wants there to be if not trust, then tolerance.

He wants to feel whole.

“I’m sorry, Thomas,” Janus says, not unkindly. “But just because it’s in your head doesn’t mean it’s any of your business.”

Thomas tries to parse that out for all of two seconds before his brain blue screens with an almost audible screech. Janus has already sunken out most of the way by the time he manages to stop stammering.

“I…yeah, I kind of think it is!” he calls after him.

In answer a yellow gloved hand rises back up and gives a jaunty wave before disappearing again.

“Scaly asshole,” Thomas mutters and starts setting out plates.

* * *

Thomas holds up a hand as soon as Janus has fully manifested.

“We’re going to watch a movie,” he says, “No existential crises. No trying to melt my brain. We’re going to sit **quietly** and we’re going to **bond** and so help me, you’re going to **like it.** ”

He points to the couch with a stern jab of his thumb. Janus meekly takes his seat, folding his hands on his lap like a cat who would never **dream** of getting into the cream.

Thomas narrows his eyes.

“Mulan okay?”

A heroic liar willing to put her own life on the line? It had seemed like a safe enough bet.

His mistake, of course, was making it a choice.

“I prefer Frozen,” Janus suggests, and Thomas chokes.

“…I…really?” Thomas likes the film well enough himself, but he’d figured Janus would enjoy something a little more…sophisticated. Or at least as sophisticated as Disney gets. All of Frozen’s themes are right there on the surface.

“I like the gloves,” Janus says, and it’s so deadpan that Thomas laughs until he wheezes. Janus pretends to be offended, but that hidden smirk is twitching and there’s a glitter in his green eye that Thomas has learned means mischief.

“Fine,” he capitulates, even though he knows it’s risky. Giving in to Janus is **always** risky. “Frozen it is.”

Sitting quietly quickly turns into inventing an elaborate inner life for Elsa’s gloves. Leftie is a snob who may or may not have set in motion a series of events that led to the sinking of a certain ship. Rebecca (really, Thomas?) is a salt of the earth type who **definitely** plans to take over the world.

(’…this is actually working,’ Thomas thinks at one point, and if he preens a little he figures he deserves it.)

“I always found it rather sad,” Janus says after the credits roll. “One little mistake ruined everything.”

“You mean when Anna took Elsa’s glove? Or when their parents made Elsa fear her powers?” Thomas pauses. “Actually, the whole plot is people making new mistakes while trying to fix old ones.”

Janus chuckles. “I think you’ll find that’s true of life. But I meant Hans. If he had just held it together five more minutes….”

Resist. Be strong. Don’t…

“Explain,” Thomas grits out, and somehow he already regrets it.

“All Hans had to do was kiss Anna. It wouldn’t have worked, of course, but he could scarcely be blamed if her love for him wasn’t true. She would have died in his arms, as he claimed, and the kingdom would have prospered.”

“…prospered under the reign of a murderer.” In for a penny, in for a pound of staning the tyrant.

Trap set and sprung. Janus smiles like the snake who ate the cat, the cream, the canary, and a few dozen innocent mice.

“You mean the man who held the kingdom together after both princesses abandoned it,” he corrects, “The man who opened the palace and kept the citizens warm and fed during an eternal winter. The man who rode out to fight a powerful witch at great risk to his own life. Yes, that all sounds like a **terrible** king. Two sheltered young girls would surely do much better.”

Thomas eyes the nearest throw pillow. As far as Thomas is aware, Janus doesn’t yet know that he can touch that sides. Whacking him in the face with it would be a satisfying way to introduce the concept.

“You’re still ignoring the murderer part,” Thomas points out, “And the fact that he manipulated Anna into thinking he loved her.”

“Eh,” Janus dismisses that with an airy little shrug. “Nobody’s perfect.”

It is indeed **tremendously** satisfying. “Rude,” Janus gripes after he’s done sputtering. He retrieves his toppled bowler from the floor and makes a show of inspecting it for damage.

“Do you want to keep admiring the conniving scumbag?” Thomas asks sweetly.

Deceit looks between Thomas’ face and the pillow still in his hands. “Perhaps you’re right.” Yeah, Thomas thought so. “As I said, Hans did have one tragic flaw. He could have been remembered as the hero, but he cracked under the pressure of playing the part.”

“You might even say…” Janus leans back until he’s pressed against the arm of the couch. Thomas readies himself. “…all he needed to do was conceal, don’t feel.”

Thomas’ swing just misses as Janus rolls off the couch and sinks straight down the floor in a startling display of sinuous grace.

Still satisfying, though.

* * *

It’s not a bolt out of the blue. More of a slow curdling realization.

Thomas is eating a bowl of ramen when the last puzzle piece gently slots home. He’s alone, because that’s important too. Sometimes he needs it, the silence and the space to simply be.

He stares into the distance. Tips his spoon, the noodles falling back into the too-salty broth with a plop that splashes his shirt.

Thomas doesn’t notice. “Son of a bitch…” he mumbles as he starts to see the pattern, “…that slippery snake.”


	7. Roman Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost at the end here, folks. Should be one or maybe two more chapters to go. 
> 
> (On the Janus question- hopefully this chapter gives more clues as to what Janus was up to. It will be made more explicit in the next Janus section, though.) 
> 
> As always, thank you so, so much for your feedback!! I'm probably going to go ahead and finish and then go back and reply to everyone.

“ _Roman.”_

There is a chasm in Thomas. A gap narrow and winding, and in its depths cold winds blow.

Under the winds; silence. Silence: the absence of sound. But this silence is more then just a lack. It fills a space.

“ _...Roman...'_

Thomas wants it to be a choice. He knows that Roman is trying, even now. They drift by when Thomas is on the cusp of sleep, frail little whispers from the voice. Snippets of scripts, half-formed concepts for future videos. Sometimes just a phrase, evocative but untethered from context.

_(...the things the waters left behind...)_

Still, trying, even now, to be what Thomas needs.

But the days pass, and it's a fearsome thing, this hollow at his core. This space in the shape of himself. A fun house mirror, and the reflection has a royal's sash and barren, windswept eyes.

“ _...Roman...”_

He wants it to be a choice, but over these past weeks Thomas has learned many valuable things.

Selfish is not a dirty word.

It's okay- even good- to **want**.

He owes himself the same kindness he shows other. **All** of himself.

There is a time to give.

There is a time to take.

Motive matters.

The end results matter **more**.

And so Thomas decides that it's time once again to be a little selfish.

_'Roman, **please**.' _

* * *

They stand together on the stage of Thomas' childhood. The curtain shifts slowly from deep wine to lighter cherry to an inbetween garnet, because Thomas can never quite remember the precise red of it.

“I want to try some improv,” Thomas says.

It would be easier if Roman were sullen. If he pouted and stomped his feet and refused outright. But he only looks at Thomas, and the chasm between them yawns wide.

“We never did, before.” Not last time, when Roman had fled back to the sanctuary of loneliness. But also not back then, when Roman had asked and Thomas had assured him that they would. Somehow he'd never found the time. Had never **made** the time, and that was the problem, wasn't it? Time was never a given. “Please. Just one scene?”

Roman is loud. In voice, in action, in everything he does. He **projects**. Plays to the back rows even when there's no audience at all.

But now...

“Thomas...” Not a whisper but compressed, crushed down and flattened to a mumbled smear. “I can't. I'm sorry, I just...I can't. I'm **sorry**.”

And Roman too. Shrinking inward, arms wound around himself in a desperate clutch. Shoulders bowed low under the weight of the spotlight. Made lesser, and even his uniform is bare of gilt and braids. Only the emblem at his shoulder remains and even that is fraying and faded, the once proud towers crumbling into a turbulent sea.

Thomas sucks in a breath when he sees it. He's waited too long, left Roman to wallow under the guise of giving him space.

Thomas steels himself. Reaches down deep for the ruthlessness to be kind.

“I'll do the work,” he says. And then again, “Please.”

It's a cheat and it's cruel but it works, as he'd known it would. Roman acquiesces with a tiny nod, and it looks like surrender.

“You're Prince Phillip.” Thomas sets the scene, and the stage shimmers like a false oasis. “You've just woken Aurora and you're coming down the stairs.”

He focuses, and the world **ripples**. Coalesces into something new, but this isn't the grand, opulent throne room that Roman might have crafted. Just a set, and a poorly constructed one at that. The cardboard backdrops are torn and sagging, the grand staircase a rickety thing of mismatched wood and crooked nails. Something Thomas and his friends might have thrown together on a lazy summer afternoon, and Thomas finds that he loves it. He misses it, those days when he was young and dumb and enthusiastic. It hadn't mattered, then, if things were perfect. If the corners were squared and the props realistic.

At the top of the stairs Aurora stands arm in arm with Roman. She looks stapled in, pasted over the more-real dreamscape around her, but Thomas can't picture her as anything other then a cartoon.

“You're exhausted,” Thomas tells Roman, “You've just escaped a cell. Battled a dragon. You're bruised and bloodied and just want to sleep.”

As he speaks Roman slumps. He's trying to stand steady, to be the prince the kingdom needs, but his legs tremble and his ribs scrape brittle. A gash opens on his brow and the blood meanders down his cheek to drip from his chin. Aurora coos and pats his arms.

“I'll be your father,” Thomas says, and waves for Roman to approach. He comes staggering, knock kneed and trying to hide it.

“Phillip,” Thomas greets, but he spares only a glance for his son. Sweeps into a bow and takes Aurora's hand to kiss the knuckles, murmuring over her beauty and grace.

“I see my son...” A disdainful glance, and Roman frowns as he realizes that Thomas is no longer playing the silly, blustering king of the movie, “...has at least had the grace to escort you.”

He glances about, as though to make sure no one may overhear. The bit players of the court fade in and out, shadowy and featureless. They're a little....okay, a whole lot...terrifying, the sort of eldritch horrors that Remus would be proud of. Thomas just doesn't have it in him to fill in the details, not when he's so focused on getting this **right**.

(It's easier when the two of them work together. Thomas can worry about the bigger picture and trust in Roman to make it sparkle. Or Roman will toss out (silly and wonderful, often impracticable) ideas and it's Thomas' job to make them work. They **mesh** , and when they're both at their best it feels like an explosion, like a heady **thrum** that builds on itself) 

(' _ Exponential _ ,' Thomas thinks, and smiles) 

“I'm afraid we must speak.” Thomas-as-King Hubert pulls Aurora aside. Not so far that Roman can't overhear if he tries, and by the tilt of his head he is trying. 

He tells her of his son's dalliance with a pheasant. Shushes her when she makes to protest. Tells her that Phillip will be stripped of his crown so that he may pursue a life among the low. Tells her that all will be well. Better, even. 

“My eldest son rules a kingdom to the east,” he says, “And when the two of you are wed, you will not be a princess but a queen.” 

(“Phillip doesn't have a brother,” Roman protests. 

“Yes and,” Thomas says, and Roman throws up his hands with a grumble. And it's a delight, that little spark of life in him, but Thomas knows they have so much further yet to go.) 

Thomas steps sideways and into the role of Aurora. She considers, but only briefly. Glances over her shoulder to where Phillip stands battered, then smiles at the king in her soft, beguiling way. 

“When may I met him?” she asks. 

“That...” Roman looks baffled. He looks **hurt**. Affronted in some deep down place. “That's not what happens! That's not how it's supposed to go.” 

“Oh?” Thomas-as-Aurora asks. Mild and soft, as befits a princess. “How is it supposed to go?” 

“We're supposed to live happily ever after!” It's very nearly a whine. Frustration, and that's something, at least. 

“But I'm going to.” Aurora tips her head, miming her confusion. “I'll be a queen. I'll be married to a handsome king. I'm getting everything I wanted.” 

“But I...” Roman hesitates. Because it would be selfish to complain, wouldn't it? Selfish to ask- “...what about me? I saved you!” 

Aurora floats closer. Leans up on her tiptoes to press a delicate, empty kiss to the prince's scraped cheek. “And that was so sweet! Isn't it reward enough to know I'm happy and safe?” 

And she turns. 

Walks away. 

Leaves him behind. 

Behind him Thomas can hear Roman breathing quick and hard, a stutter catch that makes his own lungs feel starved. Can hear him fighting. Fighting to keep control, and Thomas prays, he prays...

“No!” 

It's a scream. A howl, torn loose from that deep down place where Roman's pride once dwelt. It's denial and hurt and white-hot, righteous anger. 

_ 'Thank god,' _ Thomas thinks with equal parts gratitude and grief. 

He turns, and Roman isn't small anymore. He stands bold, arms outstretched, spine rigid. Those once-desolate eyes are full enough to spill over, watering down the blood on his cheeks with his tears. Around them the stage is fragmenting, dissolving away to show pockets of the living room beneath. 

“No!” Roman snarls again, to Thomas and the world, “It's not! It's not enough! It's not **fair**!” 

...almost. Just a little more. A tiny push. 

“...if you were a real hero, you'd be happy for me,” Aurora tells him. 

It's a cheat and it's cruel and it cuts Roman off at the knees. He crumbles, and Thomas (just Thomas) is there to catch him as he falls. They land on the carpet by the couch, and Thomas curls over his side, his self.   


His Roman. 

Roman shakes his head against Thomas' chest. “I want...” A hiccuping gasp, and it sounds like it hurts, sounds like it's killing him. “I want...” 

“Yes.” Thomas bends his head to whisper into Roman's ear. Hisses it fierce even as he rocks him gently. “Yes. You're allowed to. Roman, do you hear me? You're allowed to.” 

It's a start. 

* * *

Roman sobs for a long time. 

Thomas doesn't shush him. Just holds him, shelters him. Sometimes he hums (Everything Stays, because it's about things lost that are found, and how they are changed in the losing.) 

But mostly he waits. And finally, when the sobs become sniffles and Roman is ready, they talk. 

* * *

  
Once upon a time a snake came slithering. 

The snake came bearing knowledge, and it shared with Thomas many valuable things (or lead him down a curving path to find them for himself.) He whispers them to Roman now, in the quiet dark of the living room. 

“You're me, but you're not **just** me,” he says, “You're **you** , too. It's okay to want things for **you** , Roman.”

Has he ever told the sides that before? How many times has Roman told Thomas that all he wants, all he needs, is to see Thomas obtain his dreams? 

“You wanted the callback.” Thomas holds tighter when Roman tries to pull away. “Not for me. For **you**. It was **your** dream, and that's okay, it's okay to have dreams, to have goals. I need to...I need to get better at it, I know.” 

It's all so hazy,the nebulous division between them. Thomas isn't sure how to balance it, how to give and take in equal measure when he's made up of so many. Maybe it's not even possible. Maybe someone is always doomed to feel left out or left behind. 

Still. He's determined to try. 

Roman garbles something from where Thomas has his face smooshed against his shoulder. Thomas manages something like a laugh and eases up, just a little. 

“It's your life,” Roman tells him, “You have to do...” 

“It's **our** life,” Thomas corrects, and if the rest is hazy that at least is crystal clear. “We're in this together.” 

Roman looks dubious, but that's okay. The sides have gone a long time thinking of themselves as parts of a whole. Which they are...but so is Thomas. Just one little part, and the thing they make together is so much greater. 

' _ Gestalt _ ,' he thinks, and that's another word to share with Logan later. He says it again to himself, and it makes him shudder because it feels so terribly right. 

“It's okay to have dreams,” he says again, “And it's okay to be angry when someone takes them away.” 

“'m not angry,” Roman mumbles, and the lie is so blatant that Thomas half expects Janus to pop up just to call him out on it. 

“No?” He shifts to arrange them both a little more comfortably. “Cause I'd be pissed as hell if someone made me feel guilty for wanting something and then made me feel guilty for giving it up. Roman....we've been **gaslighting** you. It was a shitty, shitty thing to pull. You-” 

“I'm not angry!” Roman snaps. 

Angrily. 

Thomas raises a brow. When Roman pulls away this time he lets him go. Watches him pace, and can't help but see Remus in his too-sharp strides and the jut of his chin. 

“Fine! I'm angry.” Roman draws his hands through his hair until it stands wild. “But not...I'm angry because you didn't care!” He whirls on Thomas (but still offers him a hand when he sees Thomas shift himself to stand, because **of course** he does.) “We gave up the callback and all you had to say was 'that's over and done with.' You just...you moved on like it didn't matter but it **did**.” 

He snarls the last. “I know,” Thomas says, “It mattered and what happened wasn't fair.” 

Roman tips his head back. He looks like he wants to howl again, to scream primal and ugly, but instead he only snorts and shakes his head. “It's stupid,” he tells the ceiling, “ **Life** isn't fair. I'm not Patton. I don't...I don't pretend everything is sunshine and rainbows. It's dumb. It doesn't...” 

He trails off, still shaking his head. “It doesn't change anything,” Thomas says, “But it's still okay to be angry. Even at me, Roman.” 

It must be terrifying. The sides in some ways are  **for** Thomas. He knows himself as only one part, but to the sides he lies at the very center. To be angry at him is to be angry with the whole of it. 

He is their world, he knows, and that responsibility isn't something he asked for. It's not fair, but life isn't. And given the choice, Thomas thinks he would rather have them then not. Would rather be a fraction then be solitary, but then he doesn't know what's it's like. Thomas has never in his life been alone. 

“...okay.” Roman runs his hand through his hair again. “Then I'm angry. Now what?” 

It's a plaintive question, and Roman deflates with it, twisting to sit on the couch with a huff. He looks lost and tired and rumbled, and Thomas can't help but smile at him. Because he's here, and for now that's enough. 

“I don't know,” he admits, “You just...get to be angry. I can tell you I'm sorry, and I can promise that next time I'll try to do better.” 

Roman considers that before offering another tiny nod. It's not forgiveness, but Thomas wouldn't trust it if it were offered. It would be too easy, too pat. He needs to...wants to...earn it. 

Thomas could leave it there. But there was something else the snake said, and Thomas knows there's one more wound that needs lancing. 

He takes a seat beside Roman. Looks at him, with his too-plain uniform and tear-stained cheeks. At his shoulder the towers still crumble, but the sea below is still and calm again. 

“I remember the first time I watched Sleeping Beauty.” Thomas laughs a little. “Mom thought I was going to wear out the tape. She thought I liked the dragon, but I was all about...” 

“...Prince Phillip,” Roman finishes, “Yeah, probably should have been a clue.” 

They grin at each other, and Thomas hates himself a little for what he's about to do.

“He was my first Disney prince. The perfect hero.” 

Roman stiffens. Suspicious, or bracing himself, or maybe just that word alone is enough, now. A knife dug deep, and Thomas is about to push it deeper. 

“I needed that, then. I was a kid, and kids need heroes who are brave and kind and willing to sacrifice themselves for a greater cause.” 

Roman jolts to his feet. It's only luck that lets Thomas catch him by the sleeve. “I don't...” Roman begs, “I need...”

He tries to sink out. Would have, if Thomas hadn't already had a grip on him. And it's a cheat and it's cruel, but he's not letting go. 

“Kids need black and white, sometimes.” He's speaking quickly, trying to get to the heart of it before he guts Roman wide. “But I'm not a kid anymore.” 

Sometimes the side change. Sometimes they don't, and it's the metaphor that shifts askew. A snake brings a gift instead of a trick. A prince needs a knight of his own to protect him. 

“I don't need you to be a hero anymore, Roman.” Not that kind, at least. The kind who never grows or changes and is always willing, always selfless. “You...Prince Phillip is boring, isn't he?” 

Roman is fighting him outright, now. Pushing at Thomas, trying to pull free, and this is pain, this is panic. This is his very core under attack. Who is he, if he isn't Thomas' hero? 

“You're Roman,” Thomas says in answer to that unvoiced question, “You're Roman and **that's enough.** It's...god, Roman, it's so **much**. It's **everything** , don't you see that?” 

Somehow he gathers him in. Stands steady when Roman twists and squirms and beats at him with his fists (just a ghost of a touch, never hard enough to bruise, because  **of course** he would never.) 

Roman is crying again. Roman is breaking, but it's necessary, Thomas thinks. For so long he's been trying to live up to an impossible ideal. Cracking slowly under the pressure of playing a part that Thomas outgrew long ago. 

He presses a kiss to Roman's temple. “You can rest for a while, sweetheart,” he tells him, “I'll be the hero for a bit, okay? I've got this.” 

_ 'I've got us _ ,' he means. 

It happens slowly, but Thomas expects that. Roman never learned how to give up the fight, because that's not what a hero does. But slowly he stills. Allows himself to be gentled. Let's Thomas stand strong for the both of them. 

“Okay?” Thomas asks. 

“...okay,” Roman whispers, and if he's small again that's fine. It just makes it easier for Thomas to hold him. 

It's a start. 


	8. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter after this, I think!

In the aftermath of the aftermath, Thomas takes some time.

He plays Animal Crossing with Patton. Gives him the grand tour, and it's no surprise that Felicity is his favorite. The next house down is Tad the frog, and Thomas has Patton close his eyes. Makes it a surprise, and he's a little worried, maybe, that it might come across as crass or even hurtful.

Patton peeks. Squeals at a pitch mice would flinch from, and Thomas grins. “Wait until you meet Lily,” he says, and soon enough Patton is miming a gurgling death from cuteness toxicity.

He goes for walks with Logan. It's not the rainforest, but his sleepy little neighborhood is teeming with more life then Thomas knew. Logan catalogs the things they see, records it all for later research. Squirms shy when Thomas marvels at the precise, lovely little sketch of a palmetto bug in flight.

He listens to music with Virgil. My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Dashboard Confessional. They give each other try-hard goth makeovers and giggle at the idea that Thomas ever thought himself mysterious and brooding.

And when the nostalgia is satisfied they find new bands, new songs. Emo-adjacent at first; melodic hardcore, first wave, punk pop. Later they make a game of it, the weirder the better. Thomas is thrilled to discover that pirate metal and wizard rock are not only real, but exactly what one would expect. They set aside the white foundation and smudged eyeliner and try out pastel punk and glam and beauty. Why not? If they don't like it they can always change back.

He keeps writing with Remus. Seven notebooks in, and the bird is now a demigod **thing** that floats bloated and hungry on the outskirts of the universe. Or it **is** the universe and it means to eat itself. Thomas isn't sure how much further it can go, but he's excited to find out.

Between chapters they watch horror movies. No torture porn...Thomas will never be able to tolerate things like Hostel or Audition. But they watch every Child Play's movie and Cabin in the Woods and Tusk, and Thomas finds it easy, now, to laugh at the gorey absurdity. Remus is scarier then any B-rated slock, and there's something reassuring in knowing the real monster is on his side.

He starts writing with Roman. Fanfiction at first, riffing off stories already told. They make Aurora the dragon. No true love's kiss, just a smoldering inner fire that lets her overcome the curse to save her kingdom. Snow White meets the dwarfs and learns that they too are victims of the Queen, forced to give up the precious gems they mine. Instead of cooking and cleaning she trains alongside them, and in the end leads a rebellion armed with pick axes and shovels to reclaim her throne. They take the pressure off the princes, and learn that new and wonderful things can grow from even the most well-worn tale.

Roman still doesn't sing. But sometimes he hums as he writes, soft and low and tremulous.

And Thomas never points out how Roman's royal garb is in flux. The sash still red, but darker now (garnet, the very same shade as the curtain in the middle school auditorium, and Thomas isn't sure how he ever forgot.) Instead of gold his braids and buttons are mother of pearl. They spark iridescent, but in the right light you might almost think them gray.

Roman is changing, little by little, and Thomas can't wait to meet the person he's becoming.

* * *

Thomas takes some time. Takes the time to talk to each of them. Of dreams and goals. Of wanting, and reassures them that they can.

The words are easy enough. Convincing them? Not so much. It's a novel idea to the sides...that this life is theirs too.

But they talk about responsibility, to both yourself and to others. About compromise. About balance, and what it means to be one and what it means to be many.

 _Gestalt_. Something that is made of many parts and is greater then the sum of them.

(He tells it to Logan, and has the pleasure of seeing Logan's eyes go wide as the truth of it hits home.

“Oh,” Logan says, “That...yes.”

Thomas nods.

 **Yes**.)

With coaxing and care and patience they talk, and in the aftermath of the aftermath Thomas makes some changes of his own.

He still can't adopt a dog. He travels too much, and in truth he's not sure he's ready for the responsibility.

But he **can** foster. His first is a tiny mop named Tatertot. Thomas has her for two weeks before it's time to send her on to her new home. And yeah, he bawls like a baby. But Patton is there to cry with him, and they both agree that it was so, **so** worth it.

He doesn't have the time for a college course. Instead he finds an amateur astronomy club on meetup, and joins them every other Tuesday with his brand new telescope in hand. They drive for an hour to watch the Perseid meteor shower on a hilltop far from the city lights, and Logan's quiet awe is matched only by Thomas' own.

Thomas isn't quite ready to audition again. That wound is still raw (though Thomas already knows that he **will** , and soon...that dream is his too, and he's not going to let it go so easily.) Even joining a local theater group doesn't sit right, and anyway he's had his fill of Hairspray and Fiddler. 

He's mindlessly scrolling through Facebook when he sees it. An ad for a volunteer position at the local community center. They're looking for someone to teach creative writing to at-risk kids. 

It's terrifying (what does Thomas know about children?)

It's perfect.

Virgil works them both up to near tears before the first session. The kids will hate him. He'll stutter and stammer and make a fool of himself. The **parents** will hate him. They'll learn he's gay and run him out of town. He won't be any good at teaching. He'll **damage** the kids, ruin their love of reading and writing for life.

Thomas breathes.

Tells Virgil to do the same, and steps into the classroom with a smile and no idea what he's doing.

That first time is rough, yeah. It's also fantastic, and only gets better.

The kids are young and vibrant and ready to **make**. They meet once a week to tell a new story together. It's Thomas' job to provide structure, a prompt and a framework to build on.

Sometimes the story is the sort of fanciful fairy tale that Thomas himself had written at that age. They might start with a witch hiding away in the dark green depths of the woods. What is she doing? Making a potion. What does the potion do? It opens the door to fairyland. Why does she need to go there? Because the fairy king kidnapped her cat and she's going to get him back.

Sometimes it's about butts and burps. Because they're kids, and that sort of stuff is comedy gold. There's a superhero...what's his power? He has super-stick boogers that can capture bad guys. What's his weakness? He can only use them when no one is watching because he's too embarrassed to pick to his nose. What his codename? Major McSchnoz Face.

(Maybe Thomas isn't as mature as he thought, because Major McSchnoz Face **slays** him. Lays him right out, and he lets the kids spend the rest of the session drawing the hero is all his sticky, nasty glory.)

...and sometimes it's both, and the tale of Pretty Penelope the Puking Princess will forever be one of Thomas' proudest collaborations. He types it up and gives a copy to each of the kids. The author's page has a dozen names, and the last reads Thomas R. R. Sanders.

He's blown away every session by his class of mad munchkins. A little jealous and intimidated, even, because these kids? His kids? They're going to change the world someday.

(And it turns out that giving back? It doesn't always have to be a sacrifice. It's not always deprivation and making do with less so others have more. Sometimes it's puppy kisses and your shyest kiddo raising his hand to suggest that maybe the cat was the fairy king all along.)

* * *

For Patton, dogs. (And the chance to love in a clean, uncomplicated way. A chance to be needed. Just as he is, without worrying that he's overdoing it or getting it wrong.)

For Logan, stars. (And the chance to learn in the structured way that he thrives on. A chance to share his knowledge with the assurance that the people around him as just as fascinated and eager to know more.)

For Remus and Roman, stories. (For Remus, the chance to practice restraint, but also to be appreciated as he is. For Roman, the chance to be a hero. Not a dragon slaying prince but a **real** hero, the kind who changes real lives for the better.)

For Virgil?

Virgil doesn't ask for much. He just wants Thomas to be safe. Virgil wants **Virgil** to be safe. Or he wants to **feel** safe, and those aren't the same thing, not really. You can be safe without feeling like you are, and it's in that gap between perception and reality that Thomas sees opportunity.

Virgil balks when Thomas brings up the idea. Digs his heels in hard, but Thomas expected no less. It's another case of their fears feeding each other. Fear of the new, fear of change, fear of failure, fear of success.

But there are fears mixed in that are unique to Virgil, and those at least Thomas can soothe. Late night cuddles and endless promises that this isn't about getting rid of Virgil. It's not about **fixing** Virgil. It's about narrowing that gap, so that Virgil can have an easier time matching reaction to risk. So that he can **feel** safe when he **is** safe.

Thomas goes to therapy.

He's not ready to try medication (though he doesn't rule it out.) His therapist tells him about cognitive behavioral therapy. Sends him home with worksheets, and Thomas and Virgil fill them out together. They learn to spot the patterns of disordered thinking and replace them with new ones. Recruit Logan to help them spot distortions, and things...

They get better. Not quickly, not easily. It's **work** , and sometimes Virgil backslides and sometimes Thomas does, but they have each other's backs. They watch out for each other, and Logan watches out for them both.

It's their life, and it's getting better every day.

* * *

One morning Thomas wakes with a groggy snarl for the alarm. He eats breakfast with Patton and lets their newest foster (a drooling, saggy senior named Chewbarka who might just be his first foster fail) out to pee. He checks in with Logan for the day's schedule, and agrees with Virgil that the week is starting to feel a little overbooked.

(They decide that Saturday will be a free day, and Thomas is fully intending to spend it watching Parks and Rec in his jammies.)

(Just because some things change doesn't mean everything needs to.)

He wanders upstairs for a shower (alone, thank you Remus.) Lathers up and tries to think of a good prompt for the writing group that afternoon.

He's rinsing his hair when he snaps rigid. Hands still raised, heedless of the soap running into his eyes. Strains to listen. Heart racing, hoping...

It's soft. Small.

_('I say what goes around comes back around...')_

Beyonce, not Britney. Rough and more than a little off-key. Distracted, like the singer doesn't realize they're singing it.

Slowly Thomas starts to move again. And if his eyes burn and it looks like he's crying, it's only the sting of the shampoo.

* * *

It's their life, and it's getting better every day.

But there's still that pinch behind his belly button. A sense that while things are getting, he's not done yet.

For Patton, dogs. For Logan, stars. For Remus and Roman, stories. For Virgil, safety.

For Janus?

Thomas doesn't even know where to **start**.


	9. Janus Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're out! Thank you so much for the amazing support this fic has gotten. I hope you find the ending satisfying. I know not everything wraps up neat and tidy, and I'm sorry-not-sorry? It's just like that sometimes. 
> 
> Warnings for excessive dialogue and open-ended questions about morality. 
> 
> You're all invited to the after party where I post a bunch of notes and chatter on about head canons and my thoughts on my own writing. (Hey, Janus isn't the only one who likes to hear himself talk.) 
> 
> (And yes, the comment about 'gotta bring it around' is me calling myself out. I think it's clear at this point that I enjoy patterns and repetition a bit too much.)

“...I know what you're doing.”

Janus doesn't have the common decency to look remotely curious or unsettled. “Oh, I highly doubt **that** ,” he says, “But go off, I suppose.”

He invites Thomas to continue with a sweep of a glove. Thomas sighs and lets his folded arms drop back down to his sides.

“Okay,” he admits, “I don't know what you're doing, but I know what you **did**.” He rubs the back of his head, feeling a little sheepish and a whole lot irritated. Ten seconds in, and already he's lost control of the conversation. “It just sounded better that way. Gotta bring it around, ya know?”

Janus hums low in agreement. “Oh, certainly. Presentation is everything.” He helps himself to the recliner across from Thomas. Arranges himself in something between a sprawl and straight-backed poise, and Thomas isn't even sure how that's **possible**. “So, pray tell...what nefarious act am I to answer for today?”

Thomas is too busy contemplating the precise angle of Janus' crossed legs (idle curiosity, and not at all so he can deploy it at Joan's next party) to register the question. When he does he startles, eyes flicking back to Janus' face.

“Hey, no.” He looks a little closer. Past the strangely sophisticated slouch. Sees that while Janus' brown eye looks calm, the yellow is narrowed, the pupil drawn tight. Sees that the hand that rests so casually on his knee is balled into a fist.

Under his gaze Janus shifts. Adjusts caplet, hat, and gloves.

Shit.

“No,” Thomas says more firmly, “This isn't that.”

He'd only meant to tease, but he can understand how it must have looked. Thomas standing stern, and of course, of course Janus would have thought himself accused.

  
Thomas drops all pretense and lays out what he knows to be true.

“You've been helping me help Roman.”

* * *

Once upon a time a snake came slithering.

The snake came bearing knowledge, but a snake is a subtle creature. It winds and it coils and speaks with forked tongue.

' _Your sides are you_ ,' the snake said, so that Thomas might learn that while they are, they are also not. Asking him to reflect more deeply on what he owes to the weird and wonderful people who share his singular space in the world.

' _Consider the snake_ ,' the snake said, so that Thomas might also come to consider the prince. Thomas was an unoriginal child. Without meaning to he trapped Roman unchanging, because the heroes of his childhood were always perfect from the start.

' _We change when you do_ ,' the snake said, but only so long as Thomas allows it. He built for Roman a cage of white and never noticed when it started to chaff. He cannot change his foundation. He **can** change his understanding of the archetypes on which the sides are based. A snake becomes a friend. A prince becomes a man. Grown-up, Thomas knows now that heroes falter. They fail. They fall.

They rise.

 _'Anger needs a purpose,'_ the snake said, and sometimes that purpose is to simply **be**.

 _'Thank you for giving me permission,'_ the snake said. An avalanche of sarcasm, but someone else **did** need to hear that their heartbreak, their hurts, were justified. Needed to be given space to sit with it, and know that it was heard.

 _'The end result is more interesting,'_ the snake said. Thomas' desire to do good, to be better, wasn't enough. Sometimes pain precedes healing, and sometimes you need to be the one to inflict the hurt. Sometimes you need to **push**.

And finally...

_'He could have been remembered as the hero, but he cracked under the pressure of playing the part,'_ the snake said, because even a subtle creature can get tired of beating around the bush. 

* * *

“I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about.” Janus is examining his hidden nails. Janus is looking anywhere but at Thomas. Janus, the liar, is fooling nobody.

“The only thing I don't understand is **why** ,” Thomas says, “Why hide it?” 

Janus gives him a look. More pitying then anything, as if Thomas should already know. “Let's say that hypothetically you're correct. Given the source...would Roman have been likely to accept any help if he had the slightest suspicion I had a hand in it? Hypothetically speaking.” 

“...fair enough,” Thomas admits, “But you could have told **me**. Without the subterfuge. Would have saved us both a lot of time and bother.” 

“Hypothetically speaking, you are remarkably dense,” Janus agrees, “But Thomas....are you suggesting that you would have **lied** to Roman?” He mimes shock, but there is genuine curiosity in the tilt of his head. 

“Of course not!” 

Just...hidden a few facts. Omitted them, you might say. 

Thomas rubs his forehead. Swallows back his groan, if only to break the habit. He seems to groan an awful lot when Janus is around. 

He clicks his tongue as realization strikes. “But I  **did** lie. I knew-” 

“-you **suspected** ,” Janus corrects, “Hypothetically speaking.” 

Thomas starts to insist that it's the same, or close enough. But what if he  **had** known? No ambiguity, just the words laid plain straight from the serpent's mouth. 

He would have wanted to tell Roman. Would have felt compelled to make a point of it. All in hopes that Roman would see that Janus, irritating, smug bastard that he is, is not his enemy. Well-meant, of course. Done with only the best intentions. 

It would have been a disaster. 

Right now, in this moment, Roman needed to worry about Roman. Not about Janus, or what Thomas thought his relationship with Janus ought to be. There would be time for that later. But for now Roman had given his empty, forced apology, and that would have to be enough. 

“Fair enough.” A grumble this time, and Janus' smirk is alive and well. He stands and dips his chin. 

“I'm sure you can appreciate at this point that it is best if this conversation never happened.” He pauses. “Hypothetically-” 

“-speaking,” Thomas finishes, “Yeah, I got it.” 

Janus bids him good day. Sinks out, and it's a good five minutes before Thomas remembers the stack of books waiting patient and a little dusty on the table. 

Damn it. 

* * *

“Really, Thomas?” 

“Really.” 

Thomas stares Janus down until he surrenders with a hiss and plops down on the other side of the chessboard. All sprawl, no poise, a silent protest by way of apathy. He rolls his neck slowly to look over at Thomas. 

“I can't help but notice your air conditioner is off,” he notes. 

Thomas is greasy with sweat. He can smell it, his own pit stench like a film on his tongue. “I got chilly.” He's particularly proud of how flat it sounds, pitch perfect deadpan. 

Janus rolls his eyes. Thomas has a blink-fast flashback of orbs skittering across the kitchen tiles. He shakes it off with a shudder and reaches for the board. 

“Same rules.” Thomas starts off by moving a familiar pawn. Janus does as well, offering his own up for the taking. Unlike last time, Thomas does not hesitate. 

“What happened between you and Virgil?” 

Janus makes a thick sound low in his chest, exasperation distilled to its purest form. “Thomas-” 

Thomas holds up a hand. Waits for Janus to meet his gaze and holds it. “No avoidance. No running away or I  **will** drag you back here kicking and screaming.” He takes almost feral pleasure at the way Janus' eyes go wide. “End results, Nope Rope. We're doing this if it kills us both.” 

It very well might. Thomas doesn't know what the consequences would be if he threw his own self-preservation out a window, but he's getting frustrated enough to find out. 

Janus looks, if not precisely cowed, then at least vaguely contrite. He straightens himself out, shifting to face Thomas head-on. 

“Do you trust me?” he asks. 

Thomas is going to  **throttle** him. 

Janus holds up his hand. “I swear I have a point.” 

“You **always** have a point,” Thomas grouses. Janus is nothing **but** points. There's no softness to the man. Not an ounce of give. 

“Do you trust me?” Janus asks again. 

Part of Thomas wants to cackle wild at the very idea. Part of him wants to insist that Janus has proven himself. 

Neither response would be the truth. Neither would be a lie. 

“...it's complicated,” he demurs, and Janus is the one who chuckles low. 

“You're learning,” he approves, and Thomas hates himself a little for the warm glow it brings. “Let me rephrase. Would you take me at my word?” 

“Oh god no.” 

Thomas blurts it out. Slaps a hand over his own mouth, feeling the blush burn hot against his fingers. Lowers it slowly, and this time they laugh together. 

“No,” Thomas says again, this time more sedately, “We've established I'm kind of dense but I'm not, like, completely hopeless.” 

“We'll agree to disagree.” Janus turns the mockery mild with a smile. 

It fades, that smile. Turns melancholy, and when Janus nods toward the game Thomas doesn't pressure him to continue. This isn't running. Just a pause, a bit of breathing room to gather himself. 

They exchange pawn for pawn. Janus loses a rook, Thomas a knight. 

“My question,” Janus speaks without looking up from the board. “What is Virgil to you, Thomas?” 

“He's a lot of things,” Thomas says, “You all are.” 

“Yes, yes, we're all marvelously complex and multi-faceted. But primarily?” 

“My anxiety,” Thomas says, though it feels almost like a betrayal. “I don't...” 

He trails off. Bites his lip hard enough to sting, feeling his belly curdle and churn as the awful realization hits home. 

“Oh.” 

“Indeed,” Janus says, “It couldn't be helped. We are what we are.” 

Virgil. Anxiety. Forever second guessing. Ever alert to the threat, real or imagined. 

Janus. Deceit. Who can be trusted, perhaps, but never believed. 

Janus nods to the board again. Thomas moves a pawn out blindly. “It was easier when we...when you...were younger,” Janus says as he shifts his king to one side, “Virgil's fears were more concrete. The bullies on the playground would kick over your sandcastle or mommy would be disappointed we'd failed a test, that sort of thing.” 

He sighs. Abandons the game to lean back. Looks at Thomas, and lets Thomas look at  **him** . Shows himself exposed and burdened, and though his eyes are dry Thomas can believe for the first time that Janus too knows how to cry. 

“And then you grew up. We learned that sometimes our friends **are** the bullies. Sometimes they smile to your face and spread rumors behind your back. We learned that sometimes mommies and daddies promise that they will always love and accept you and then **they** **don't**.” 

There was a reason it had taken Thomas so long to come out. In the end, it had gone better then he could have hoped. He'd lost some cousins, an uncle, but no one close, no one loved. But the risk was there, and Thomas had seen with his own eyes how dire the consequences could be. Not all of his friends had been so lucky. 

“Virgil learned to fear the already know,” Janus says, “It would have been better for us both, I think, if I could only lie as Roman claimed. But-” 

“-you also tell the truth.” When it suited him. When he saw a purpose to it. 

Janus nods. “I was not good for Virgil.” More truth, diamond hard and glittering sharp. “He could never be sure of me, and he needed that. At the same time, I  **was** familiar. To find the courage to leave he needed a reason to risk the fear of the new.” 

…

“ **Oh** ,” Thomas says again. A weak little whisper, and he thinks he's going to be sick. “You...” 

“Indeed.” 

He offers no details, and Thomas cannot bring himself to ask. The broad shape of the thing is enough. 

Janus had  **pushed** . 

They sit in silence for some little time. Until finally Janus stands. Adjusts caplet, hat, and gloves. 

“Are you satisfied, Thomas?” 

This too is pointed. Be careful what you ask. You just might get an answer. 

Thomas nods numbly. Janus glances briefly at the board. 

“Five moves,” he says, “Keep practicing.” 

“...was it worth it?” Thomas asks before he can sink out. 

Janus considers that. 

“It worked, didn't it?” 

* * *

A week passes, and Thomas goes out of his way to avoid Janus. 

He likes Janus. Truthfully! Genuinely and sincerely. He's a right bastard and Thomas has no illusions about it, but he's  **interesting** . He's smart and observant. Get him in the right mood and he can be surprisingly playful. He's even a little bit (okay, more of a giant, mammoth, holy-shit-who-knew bit) of a dork. 

He's  **exhausting** . 

He makes Thomas think, and frankly? Thomas is kind of done with thinking just now. Thoroughly and vehemently. 

He wants to be angry at Janus for hurting Virgil. Only he'd done it to help him, and hadn't Thomas done the same to Roman? The only difference is that Thomas had been able to  **keep** Roman at the end of it all. Can he judge Janus for sacrificing  **more** ?

But what Thomas did to Roman had been necessary. (Right?  **Right?** ) Maybe there had been a better way to handle things with Virgil. A kinder way, a gentler way. Thomas likes Janus, but he can be a vicious little-son-of-an-asp when he wants to. 

**Does** the end justify the means? 

It's a complicated question, and Thomas is so damn tired of those. It makes him fiercely glad to have the sides. To have that sounding board, those varied viewpoints. He'd never really considered how lonely it must be, making those hard calls all on your own. 

...Janus had been alone. Alone with only his own nature, and Virgil had been alone with his. The two of them hadn't enough to temper each other, to blunt Janus' needle points and cushion Virgil's bristling. 

The sides needed each other. They were more then their aspects, but none of them were  **whole** . Did Janus struggle with simplicity, like Logan struggled with emotion and Patton with the concept of gray? Had it ever even  ** occurred ** to him to say “Virgil, I care about you and that's why you need to leave?” 

Thomas can't change what happened. He can't judge if it was necessary. 

But going forward? He's not sure if he can fix it, or if it would even be wise to try. He'd pressured Janus into telling him their history with the justification of the end results, and look how well  **that** went. He's in over his head with this. Out of his depth, and terribly afraid any attempt to interfere will drown them all. 

Maybe the best he can do is make sure neither of them are ever alone again. Then Virgil won't have to guess at Janus' intentions with only his own anxiety to guide him. There will be others there to check in with, to help make deciphering this complex man a little easier. Janus won't have to make the hard calls with only his strengths acknowledged and none of his weaknesses. There be others there to say “Hey, maybe this doesn't even need to be that hard after all.” 

And maybe, with time, Janus and Virgil can build something new. 

It's a complicated situation, and complicated situations are never solved overnight. Like Patton with his hugs, Thomas can see that he's been moving too fast for Janus. 

He thinks again of the fox and the boy. But Janus...Janus isn't a fox. Thomas has been reading up on snakes, and snakes are slow creatures. Their metabolism, their breathing, their heart rate. Everything about them is slow. 

Maybe Thomas needs to take Janus at his own speed. Taming is a process, after all. 

He's complicated, and Thomas wouldn't have it any other way. 

* * *

Thomas is ready. 

He has a plan. 

_'Janus?'_

Janus doesn't rise up like the others. He sinks down, but he manifests more like Virgil. Thomas isn't even sure if he needs to sink out, or if he just does it because the drama of it makes for a more satisfying exit. 

“And here I thought I had frightened you off,” is his greeting. 

Thomas offers him a hand. 

Janus stares at it for a long moment. Thomas waits. 

Janus' glove is soft and textured like suede. His grip is firm. 

“Hello,” Thomas says, “I'm Thomas, and it's nice to finally meet you.” 

...Janus smiles. His real smile, awkward and secret and so very soft. 

“Hello, Thomas,” he says, “I'm Janus. I've known you for a long time, but I can't say I'm impressed.” 

Thomas yanks him close. Knocks the hat aside to noogie him rather viciously, and grins when Janus squawks. 

It's a start. 

Quite literally. 

* * *

“...so could we, just like, not?” Thomas asks later, “You've been helping me and I've been trying to help you, but can we just...not for a while?” 

Janus blinks down at him. He looks a little tousled, which is nice, but he's not the panting wreck that Thomas is. It turns out wrestling a snake in a Florida-hot house is not precisely wise. 

“What did you have in mind?” 

Thomas heaves himself up off the living room floor. Janus takes pity and helps, hauling him up with rather insulting ease. 

Thomas heads straight for the kitchen and the promise of delicious, delicious water. “I don't know,” he says between gulps. It's the entirety of his grand plan...to not plan anything at all. “I've been making a whole lot of assumptions about what you'd enjoy. Why don't you choose?” 

Janus blinks at him again. Something white and transparent slides across his yellow eye. Flash quick, easy to miss if you aren't looking closely. 

_'Nictitating membrane,'_ Thomas thinks, and hides his smile with a swallow. 

“Tell me, Thomas,” Janus says, “...do you remember your ballroom dancing lessons?”

* * *

Janus brings them to the stage. 

The same stage. The same warped floorboards, the same curtain, the same undefinable smell. 

Janus looks about with a critical eye. “We'll need a little more room, I think.” A sweep of his hand and the space opens up around them. “Ready?” 

They fumble, at first, both of them moving to take the lead. Thomas laughs and readjusts, giving way easily. There's a swell of music, the sort of generic, forgettable stuff he remembers from his classes. 

“Foxtrot,” Janus says. He starts off simple. Slow, slow, quick, quick. 

Thomas is rusty and it shows. He'd taken ballroom dance for his physical elective in college and hadn't kept up with it, but he's surprised by how quickly it starts to come back to him. It helps that Janus proves to be a good guide, correcting for Thomas' mistakes without missing a beat. 

It's quiet for a time as Thomas focuses on not tripping them both. Slowly the dance picks up speed and smooths out. Janus dips his chin and the music shifts. 

Thomas stumbles. “Get the Party Started? Really?” 

“Pink is a queen and is perfect for all occasions,” Janus tells him seriously, “Ready for cha cha?” 

Somehow Thomas finds that easier...maybe all that practice doing the Cha Cha Slide at weddings is paying off. 

“This is fun,” he says with some surprise. He'd forgotten that he'd really quite enjoyed dancing. He'd just never been particularly skilled at it...mediocre at best. And of course that hadn't been good enough, had been excuse enough to simply stop. Just another thing Thomas had missed out on because he'd convinced himself you couldn't do something without the goal of **winning** at it. 

By the time they've moved onto rumba Thomas has started to relax, though he's not entirely sure what his hips are doing and if it could be qualified as dancing by even the most generous definition. Janus, on the other hand...

Sinuous is taking on a whole new meaning. 

“How are you so much better at this then I am?” It's a whine, but **seriously**. 

Janus swivels in a way that Thomas is fairly sure is not physically possible. “Practice,” he says, “It's easier with a partner, but you can still do a lot without one.” 

...hell. 

Look forward, Thomas reminds himself. Which reminds him...

“Maybe next time I can teach you how to actually play chess.” 

It's Janus' turn to stumble. Thomas steadies him and gets them back on rhythm. 

“I don't-” 

And it's Thomas' turn to roll his eyes. “Yeah, no, I showed the board to Logan. Five moves my ass.” 

It had taken Logan all of two minutes to determine that the outcome of the game was far from assured. Black had been  **likely** to win, but there were still too many variables to call checkmate. 

“Samba,” Janus says, and now Thomas is just trying to keep up. 

_One, uh, two_

_Three, uh, four_

“...I know the basics,” Janus admits as he moves them both, “I just haven't had much opportunity to apply it. You can imagine that Remus is not practically interested.” 

Thomas both giggles and grimaces at the idea of Remus sitting down for a sedate game of chess. He can all too clearly imagine the chaos that would result, and it only  **starts** with the pieces murdering each other in hideous ways. 

“But there are others, right? Um...” Thomas hesitates, trying to think of the right way to phrase it. “In me? I want to meet them.” 

“When you're ready,” Janus says, “And before you ask, I don't know when that will be. You'll let me know.” 

It's a non-answer, but it's honest. Still, Thomas can't stop himself from pressing, just a little. “How many more?” 

Janus sways around him. Taps him lightly on the cheek, and his smirk is positively  **wicked** . 

“Oh, honey...you'll be meeting more of you until the day you die. That never stops. Tango.” 

And this? This is where Janus really shines. The single spotlight glints bright off his scales as he moves. He glows, and Thomas can't possibly look away. 

“Still...” Janus says as he does something stupidly complex with his feet, “...you have been making strides of late. Dense as you are, you've even managed to surprise me from time to time.” 

He dips Thomas back, low enough to make him squeak and grab tight. “Like with the idea that Roman needed to stop wallowing and start getting pissed. I'm sure Patton believes that anger is just  **the worst** .” His expression makes it clear what he thinks about  **that** . “I really thought I'd need to lead you by the hand on that one, but you got there on your own. Definite gold star, Thomas.” 

He raises him back up, and Thomas is light-headed enough that he almost misses it. And he's so glad he didn't, because it's  **delicious** . 

“So you admit you were helping me with Roman,” he says, “Because I didn't hear anything hypothetical in there.” 

...

“...shut up and dance, Sanders.” 

He spins Thomas out, and Thomas tips his head back and laughs. The ceiling is a blur, but it's the fizzing pop that makes him dizzy. It fills him, overflows until he has to laugh because he's  **full** . 

_ 'My god,'  _ he thinks, half prayer and half celebration,  _ 'I love myself.'  _


	10. Notes After The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked what the future looked like for Virgil and Janus and if they would ever reconcile. While I'm not sure I'll ever come back to Self Love, I did want to share my thoughts on that question.

I think that going forward Janus and Virgil will be okay, but it will be slow going. A person with anxiety and a person like Janus are an inherently a stressful mix. Janus can be very bluntly honest, but he also leaves people guessing. Anyone with anxiety is going to find guessing at someone's intentions or meaning to be very stressful and unsettling. But if Virgil can see that the others do trust Janus' intentions (if not his words), he might be able to trust in them if not in Janus himself. 

But I'd also like to think that Janus would make some efforts to change to make it easier for Virgil. He's Deceit. He can't change who he fundamentally is. But maybe he could lean more into the blunt honesty side of himself when speaking with Virgil. Or, oddly, lean into the super-obvious-I'm-being-a-sarcastic-shit side. When Deceit is being really sarcastic (I don't know anything about words, can't have too many trees, etc.), it's very, very obvious. He's lying in a technical sense, I guess, but there's no actual ambiguity. Removing the ambiguity is the important part for Virgil.

But...they also at some point are going to need to have a conversation about why Janus drove Virgil away. I like to think that he never did anything *too* awful. It wasn't one big event. Instead he did similar to what he does with Thomas in the fic- kept pulling conversations around in circles and made it very frustrating to be around him. And because Virgil is Anxiety, he couldn't deal with it with the same patience and stubbornness as Thomas. So they gradually grew more distant until Virgil just...left. Even his leaving wasn't one big, dramatic showdown. He just stayed away for longer and longer periods. 

They're going to have to discuss it and Janus is going to avoid that shit like the plague. Someone is going to have to force it and it's going to be super uncomfortable and weird and absolutely nothing will get resolved at first. Janus is going to have to apologize and admit that even if he thought he was doing it for the right reasons and *even though it worked*, it was still a really hurtful, shitty thing to do. I wouldn't want Virgil to forgive and sweep it under the rug immediately just because Janus meant well. Sometimes we do need to push people, but we also need to be very, very careful with that line of thinking. So I would want Janus to feel real consequences for his choices, and part of that is that Virgil may eventually accept him but never forgive him. Or they may become friends, but will never have quite the same closeness that they used to have. As much as I want a happy ending for them both, and I really do, there may always be a shadow over their relationship. 


End file.
